700r4 opinions?

[frankenstein]

I'm getting ready to build a truck it has a grenaded th400 and a 206, but I have a 700r4 and a 208 the 700r4 as of now blew the pan gasket so its toasted, but id liek to have overdrive, its goin in a 73 k20 with a 350hpish long rod 400, with a gm14 bolt rear, and D44 front, with 4.56's, ive herd alot off goods and bads about it, ive been told to change the front planetary with a newer model one? any truth to that ro does it matter?

[AK20]

If you have some money to spend to have the right mods done it can be a good tranny, in stock form if you wheel it's a matter of "when not if" you will blow it up...I got about a half dozen good wheeling trips in before I toasted mine, I'm now running a SM465....if it were me, I would look to have the 400 rebuilt or go manual.

[AKMark]

Ones used until 88 were complete junk. They made a few changes for 89 models that made a big difference in longevity. Got over 250K on one behind a 350 that pulled horse trailers most of it's life. We didn't use overdrive when towing, and it had a huge auxillary cooler, but it seemed to work good.

Rebuild it right, and you shouldn't have a problem. There's folks that swear by them for drag strip mucle cars that put out tons of HP with nitrous.

[frankenstein]

well its just going to be primarly a daily driver, the 700r4 is from an 83 k5 blazer, im not putting any sort of shift kit in it, just a different shift servo and prolly a tq converter switch, and im prolly not going to do much serious off road stuff, but overdrive would be nice and maybe salvage some gasmilage, but also ive killed 3th 400's and im begining to loose faith......

[AK20]

Most swap in the Corvette servo, along with other stuff...run a huge cooler and temp gauage, heat kills these trannys fast...People who are using these on the strip also have big $$$ in them, like I said in my first post...if you have enough money alsmost anything can be made bullet proof.

[frankenstein]

true, im on a slight budget. i looked at a different front planetary its like 200 then 200 for the rebuild kit, no idea for the tq converter, then i think somone at work can build it, but im tryin to build the truck as if i were poor, cause infact i am lol

[4x4_MMMH_4x4]

th400 would be my idea... much better transmission... good street and strip rebuild kit with shift kit would cost much less than rebuilding the 700r4

[frankenstein]

indeed it would, but orange jeep, white jeep and booger are prime examples of th400's with issues, also again were talkin over drive, ive got 4.56's o know what the mpg there is

[4x4_MMMH_4x4]

hi mike