Soon To be back….

Hey all…. I haven’t been following the forum much with all that’s been going on in the last month, but I thought I better drop in for a few, and give you all (especially those from the Canaan meet) a quick synopsis on my tranny situation.

For those of you who don’t know the beginning, here it goes…

My friend and I had this awesome weekend planed of driving around this lovely state of WV with some great folks. Well, we made it to Canaan, slightly behind schedule, but nonetheless made it. Every thing started off just fine… Meeting everyone and all. After the first night there, we headed up to breakfast and started the day off right. We all gathered after breakfast, and started on our journey, well, at least I attempted to start the journey. As soon as we were ready to pull out, I plopped it in to (D)rive, and…. Well it didn’t go anywhere.

I don’t even want to get in to the number of expletives that were going through my mind at that point. Well, I decided to turn the car off and try again, and much to my surprise, it worked… I know it was weird, but I was just thinking that, “…it worked” nothing else really went through my mind at that point. So, off we went into the wild blue yonder, the only thing that really sucked, was the fact that we didn’t make it very far before we were screwed again. It acted just like you shoved the car into (N)eutral, but it was still in (D)rive.

So, I flip on the hazards and pull off the road. It didn’t take long for everyone else to figure out that we were pretty much dead in the water and to stop and see what was what. At first, the problem seemed electrical, because if you turned off the ignition, the car would drive just fine for a while. Well, we got it back to Canaan, and the diagnosis started. Nothing really seemed wrong except for my “Duty Solenoid A” was all mucked up, but with the help of Randy and some electrical tape, we got it back together. J the only problem was that, it didn’t solve anything.

Anyways… man… that turned in to a novel really quick… and I haven’t even gotten to the part where we got it to the dealer yet… J maybe I should make this a series… “The ongoing Saga of my Tranny Troubles” or something. Ok… back to the story:

Soon afterwards, we parted or ways from the rest of the gang, and planned out trip home. I was in luck that we only lived about an hour and a half away from Canaan, so our best option was to try to make it home. This I tell you, was a trick and a half. 90 miles or so isn’t a long trip, but when you have to stop every hundred yards or so and turn the car off and back on again, it gets to be a bit of a pain. So, finally we make it home, and it seems like the car is just about ready to completely crap out on us… But we made it. I’m still not sure how we did it, but the Snooby didn’t leave us stranded on the side of the road.

I gave my good old dad a call, and decided that he could run me back up to Canaan, and get all of our stuff out of the room there. But I had figured that there was no reason not to finish the weekend there, after all it was the people there that made the trip worth going on in the first place. So, my dad and me packed up and headed back that night. We made it just in time to sit down and enjoy a nice evening and dinner with everyone. I think my dad really got to understand what these meets are all about… Maybe you could say he understands them a little too well, because he liked it so much that he had to get a SVX all for himself. So now we have two of these wonderful cars now.

Anyhow, back to the tranny story… That following Monday, I had the duty of calling the local Suby dealers and find out what it was going to take to fix my baby. Well we decided on Larry Myers Subaru in Fairmont, WV. They seemed really nice, and they had a SVX technician to boot, so the next day we slapped the SVX on a rollback and off she went.

About a day later I got a call from Larry Myers, and it wasn’t a good one. The worst that could have happened did. The tranny was completely destroyed. And I got a reasonable quote from them for $2,800 for a rebuilt transmission and a 2 year warranty. Well when I head this price I was somewhat relieved at it considering some of the horror stories that I had heard, but it got me thinking on what I could do to make it last. And by the time I added up all the extras, I decided a call to Level 10 was in order.

We I called (early in the morning) I spoke with Pat. Pat is the owner and a very nice / and extremely knowledgeable. I suggest you speak with him if you’re ever unfortunate enough to have to call up there. I got a quote from him for $3,264 and that was for the whole deal all the new goodies, and a complete rebuild. It’s a very sweet deal when you compare the cost of a stock one to one that suppose to be “bullet proof”. So after making my final decision on sending it to them, my dad packed the old one all up (pics soon to be in my locker) and sent it out. It arrived 2 days later. Was there about 2 days, and then took about 2 days to get it back. From what my dad had said, and the guys at the dealer (they’re the ones that did the removal and replacement) it looks very very nice. Dad forgot to get some pics of it all shinny and looking new, but I might have to make a trip down there and snap a few before it goes back in…

That brings be to another point… never have you transmission work done during deer season in the great state of WV. The tranny is there, but there SVX dude is taking off all next week, so I have to wait a little longer to get here back, but I’m sure it will be worth it.

I hope there are still some of you hanging on out there in cyberspace land, and hope you haven’t been extremely knocked out by this huge post. Trust me…. It’s almost over J

I went ahead and ordered an aftermarket cooler from Level 10 to slap on there and bypass the already clogged stock one. I have plans to put in an ATF temp. gauge, so if any of you have any suggestions on how the best way to approach it would be, I’m open for suggestions… Over all, it was one heck of a learning experience, and I’m sad and glad that it happened. I’m definitely thankful that it happened while on a trip with a bunch of people who know a lot about these cars and I appreciate everything everyone did to make the trip worth while, and to think that if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have changed a thing… (well… the great lose in my wallet say different) but oh well… hopefully my tranny troubles are over with, and I will be bringing you guys a full report on the Level 10 tranny as soon as I get the car back. Until then I’m open to any questions, rants, or down right flames for making this the longest post ever…

I’m going to try to get as many pictures if the meet and tranny in my locker as soon as possible, with some more of the new tranny to come soon.


Thanks again to everyone and this wonderful network and I hope to see some of you again in the spring!


John Rollins

[Ron Mummert]

Welcome back, John. Your car should now last through the next 20 meets. We'll see you & Dad in Reading. Ron.

[Aredubjay]

John, glad things worked out despite the costs. Maybe Ed will let you drive his around 'til you get yours put together -- or . . . maybe not. Plan on being in Reading -- We're planning on breaking ther 25 car record. If all the folks who've committed so far, and you and Ed show up, we've got the record broken with something like 30 cars! Cool, huh?

Anyhoo, glad you finally brought us up to date.

[SVXphile]

Sounds like you are almost there John! Let us know what you thing of the Level 10 tranny. Have a great Thanksgiving! Don and Jean

[LarryIII]

John,

Great story. Hollywood could not have done a better job. I hope it has a very, very happy ending for you and your dad.

Larry III