Reverse not working, tranny noisy

Question

I thought I was stopped and put vehicle in reverse. Strange noise now no reverse and tranny whines and seems to shift hard on drive gears. Its an '04 Silverado 2×4, v6, 4.3l had no problems prior that I can think of. Have I fried my tranny?

Answer 1

Take the truck for a ride by placing the gear selector all the way down into 1st gear. Vehicle should start going. Get the engine up a little higher than you'd normally hear/feel it shift and click it up one gear to 2nd. You may not feel it shift. If you don't, click it up into drive and see if the shift happens and the rpms drop down fairly dramatically. Again, drive the vehicle faster, getting it up so the RPMs are somewhere around 3000-3500rpm and then shift it up again.

If you do not feel it shift when it goes into 2nd, nor does it shift up into over-drive, your sunshell is shot (broke sunshell = missing Rev/2nd/OD). This is one of the weak points of the 4L60e transmission. It can be rebuilt, but there will have to be work done to it. If you do get it rebuilt, consider getting a Beast Sunshell rather than putting a stock unit back into the tranny. You'll most likely run into the same issue again with an OEM sunshell unit. The Beast isn't that much more money for the part itself, but be aware labor is not going to be cheap. Doing a complete rebuild at this point is a VERY good option.