DanZan

I have a 79' Dodge B300 extended cargo van that recently dumped all it's transmission oil on the freeway while pulling an empty 25' trailer. The tranny has less than 10,000 freeway miles since the rebuild late 2018. It's an A727 torqueflite transmission hooked up to an LA360 5.9L V8.

I had the tranny rebuilt at a shop in California and noticed that it made a weird grinding noise when under its own weight in reverse. I returned to the shop about a month later and the mechanic checked it out real quick and gave it back with no change, same problem still there. Looks like he tweeked the inspection cover with a screwdriver...

I ended up buying a property shortly after and was living out of state so it was pretty much left there because driving it back to the shop in California was too expensive for me at 10mpg...

So this is what happened exactly...

I was pulling an empty 25' camping trailer on the freeway and the rpm's began increasing but my speed decreasing and this happened for about 10 seconds until a bunch of smoke started billowing out from under the van...
I got out and looked under the van and saw all the oil had dumped out of the transmission... I was able to crawl home going 5 to 10 mph and it did fine... It felt like it was slipping slightly... Say that 3 times fast!

I called the shop and informed the owner and he said a new torque converter and oil pump would probably take care of it... ??? Why would that have happened? Less than 10,000 on a rebuild?

Any help I can get finding the cause and solution would be appreciated!! Many many thanks!