Posted by Russ Roth on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 at 0:56AM :
In Reply to: Re: RUSS ROTH posted by Tom Petroff on Monday, February 21, 2005 at 4:38PM :
Rick,
There are several other things that also can cause a ballooned converter. A couple others I know about are very high HP and catastrophic (love that word!) engine failure. As in the crank stops right now. I don't know all the dynamics involved but it can and does happen. I had a friend this happened to. Rebuilt the engine and shortly did the same as yours. The symptoms were pretty much the same. He did have a lot of metal in the oil pump and filter also. Ate up the thrust surface. I am not saying this is what happened to you, just a possibility to look into. As far as I know there is no way to measure for a ballooned convertor and replacement is the only option. Hope this is helpful to you. I used to have some paperwork dealing with this issue from one of the bearing makers but I have not seen it for a while now.
RR