Publisher's Note: Welcome to our 31st edition of Tech Tips Tuesday on "Preventing Transmission Slippage: Insights and Solutions".  We'll be re-publishing an edition of AMSOIL Tech Tips for you every Tuesday.  Click on the Blog Category "Tuesday Tech Tips" to see everything published to-date.

Preventing Transmission Slippage: Insights and Solutions

John Gardner: Transmission slipping, or perhaps it's not moving at all? Well, let's take a look inside and see why that might be happening.

Welcome to this AMSOIL Tech Tip. We're going deep inside the transmission, and we're taking a look at the clutch packs. Where are they? Well, they're located inside there. You can see them right there inside the transmission. What do they do? Well, it holds different members of the transmission to achieve gears.

It's a pretty complex machine, but you can see here, there's friction material, steel plates, friction material, and then a drum with a piston. Better yet, I have one right here on the table. You can see this is the actual drum. Now, there would be a band around here that would hold the outer, and the inner is some members that cause the gears to shift. So, I can pull them out here. There's a little snap ring. I'll pull them out, show you the clutches.

So, you have the actual steel, and then in between there, you have these fibers, steel, and fibers. So, what's going on is they're spinning in there, and then down here is a piston assembly. So, when the fluid gets directed to this clutch pack, it actually pushes that piston up, bam, and it squeezes those clutches and it holds those clutches in place. You can see it right here on the graphic. It's actually got the clutches right here, and then the pistons pushing in, squeezing them.

Now, here's a whole range reference chart. What's going on here? Oh, we don't expect you to know that, but it actually shows what's held and applied to achieve all these different gears. But Len, these gears are not going to happen without fluid.

Len Groom: Nope, this whole thing requires fluid to make it all work. That's kind of the cool part, and it's all fluid under pressure, as you've discussed. The thing of it is that fluid needs to be reliable. It needs to be able to hold up to different kinds of heat, but mainly pressure.

John Gardner: And pressure is the key word there. I have a pressure solenoid right here, Len, and what's happening with the newer transmission is, well, it might start slipping. The transmission boosts line pressure, slipping, boost line pressure, and then all of a sudden, it doesn't move at all, and you wind up with these burnt clutches. Man, AMSOIL has a product that's going to help this situation.

Len Groom: It does, and our Signature Series transmission fluid is designed to hold its viscosity under those insane heat conditions, and then we don't have to continue to boost those pressures and then increase the heat which causes that clutch slippage. So, if the fluid will hold together due to, you know, really good base oils, properly formulated additives, you don't run into any of these problems. So, avoid it by using a good product.