The difficulty with putting in a TH350 is going to be in driveshaft lengths and then how to fool your PCM so that it does not care that it no longer has a transmission to control.

 

Yeah, I was aware of both problems.I have read that there are some performance shops that canreprogram the computer for a charge. Another option would be to somehow get a hold of a good PCM from a Blazer that came with a manual tranny.

The driveshaft is also not a big problem, because my buddy knows of a machine shop that will make it to my specs. Or I could get lucky and find one with theright length and spline configurationfrom another model truck. Who knows.

Also, I looked a little more closely, and the TH 350 is really an auto transmission, so it`s not one I would be interested in anyway. I wanta true manual that shifts with a clutch. I really want to research it to death before I start spending any money.

Update on the Jimmy, 1/22/09:

Yeah, they wouldn`t budge on the $2,200 price tag. For that, they replaced the sun and planetary gears, the clutch assemblies, and the torque converter, and it came with an eight-month warranty. Still seems a little steep to me, but what could I do? I didn`t want my wife to be without a ride for too long. It seems to be riding okay, except that I could swear I hear a very faint whining noise when it changes gears. Normal? I don`t know.

The Blazer just hit 180K last week, and to my knowledge has never had a tranny problem - knocking on wood - but if it does happen, it will be expensive. That`s why I`m just hoping it stays good at least until the weather gets warm and I have a garage to do the replacement. I will be sure to post pix, especially of the clutch installation, which I suspect will be the toughest part.

 

I`m bumping the thread because we have an interesting development regarding the Jimmy...

During this week`s ice storm, my wife engaged the 4WD - which worked fine - but then the "Service 4WD" light came on. Also, the 4WD won`t turn off unless you first shut off the engine and start it up again. Once you do that, the light goes out, and you can then turn off the 4x4. The way she described it sounded really weird until I took it for a test drive and saw it for myself.

My first guess is that when they reconnected the transmission and transfer case after doing the work, they forgot to plug in an electrical connection. I plan to crawl under the truck to see if I can find it myself, though it`s a mess out here with all the ice. If I can`t find it myself, I`m definitely taking it back to the transmission people, because for 2,200 bones this job should have been done perfectly! [8D]

I will search other threads to see if someone else has encountered this. Meanwhile, if anyone has any experience with this problem, please reply. Thanks!

 

Sure sounds like they forgot to reconnect something.

And do not worry about bumping a thread after a day or so. No need to edit at that point. The Double Posting & Consecutive Posting rules are setup to keep people from posting back to back within minutes/hours just to add more information. A 24 hour or greater bump is perfectly OK!

 

Kyle: Thanks for the tip!

To anyone experiencing the same problem:

I did find some previous threads on the subject. I think I`m on the right track by checking the connections under the truck. Someone posted previously that it turned out to be a bad ground connection. (Do we see a pattern here? It seems grounding problems are common in S-trucks...)

Another person said it was the switch itself, but since the problem happened right after transmission work was done, I`m still leaning toward it being a connection under the truck.

I already checked the fuse panel inside the door yesterday, but I forgot to also check the underhood fuse. I will do this just to rule it out.

I know one thing - I`m glad my truck has the three-button system. Until looking at the wiring diagram, I had no idea the 4x4 electrical system was so complicated!

As soon as I have an opportunity, I will check the electrical connectors and underhood fuse. I will then report back to the forum what I found.