Evan

So I have a 1988 dodge d100 with a 904 behind a 318 all stock with what I believe has around 87,000 miles. I replaced the torque converter recently and I've driven this thing for a year now. It's always sort of clunked or shifted harshly from 1st to second if I was mid throttle but never clunked at wot or barely any throttle. It's gotten slowly gotten worse over the time and now clunks sooner on the throttle and then proceeds to grind untill I let off the gas and it shifts or it will shift after it grinds for like 3 seconds almost like a loss of pressure some where, it also has sort of a slower and/or weaker shift 2nd to 3rd now to. I suspect it's the valve body like the separater plate is dented and allowing pressure to escape or something along thos lines I'm not to sure on the whole trans side of things and I can't find much of anything in regards to diagnosing this issue. When I replaced the converter I had pulled the valve body partially off not removing the parking rod to sort of inspect the bands and nothing seemed bad or had any heat marks or anything.
Ive also had sort of a harsh jolt or shift when I go from reverse to drive in it to, and from what I've read this sort of points to the valve body as well stating the steel check ball hitting the seperater plate dents it over time causing a harsh shift.

RacerHog

How does the fluid look and smell?

Evan

so I checked the fluids fluiright inbetween the low and high marks or in the middle of the dashed marks. The fluid smelt like trand fluid no burnt smell or anything, it looked perfect maybe a little brown ish but not like noticeable on the dip stick and it still has its viscosity. Qhen I first took the pan off of the transmission and changed the oil and filter it was very gunked up and has a large amount of clutch material and ot was very darl and smelt a little burnt. The second time around when I pulled the pan for the converter It looked about the same just not gunked up and not as much material how ever there was still material non the less,, more then what u would expect and some metalic pieces as well. The fluid that time was darkened only bc of the clutch material. I was also thinking it could be maybe my drive band or something related to one of the bands (not sure which one or what the name is) that's just worn out, it has never had anything replaced on it besides the torque converter before I got it and it's still never been opened to this day past the valve body. Ot also sat for 8 years before I got my hands on it to. Just more kind of background of the truck to sort of help bc this is my daily and I need it.
the harsh shifting from reverse to drive has always happened sense I've had it, I never paid much attention to it untill now.

RacerHog

Are you sure te trans has never had a shift improver kit installed in it? That will sometime make it shift hard into reverse?

Evan

yes I am sure. no one has ever been inside the trans past the valve body ever and it shifts hard into first from reverse.

So I actually just watched a video on a 727 and the second band adjustment for 1st and 2nd gear was loose, the back end of it came off and there was no adjustment. This intern led it to have no second gear, this kinda leads to another idea of maybe the adjustment is off and it just need to be tightened?