Rubber balls

From what I have heard, there are rubber check balls in the valve body of the AW4. Are these something that need to be replaced after a certain number of miles? My 88 has over 300,000 miles on it. The trans still works okay, obviously not like new after that many miles and some pretty hard punishment over the years. Are there any other things that I should be replacing\maintaining on my trans other than fluid and filter? Would it be worth it to remove the valve body and do a good cleaning?

If it works, don't mess with it. There is plenty of detergent in the tranny fluid to keep everything clean. Just keep the fluid clean and replace the filter periodically.

dont even worry about the stock filter on the AW4. its more of a screen than anything else. if your worried about it put on a remote filter in the lines, a trans cooler (not just the thing in the radiator), and a temp guage.

Nope.

They're actually steel balls overmoulded with rubber (at least, they were in the last couple of kits I bought...) to replace steel balls and (probably) reduce potential wear on the valve body - which is machined from aluminum.

DFWAI - you'll be fine. FIDO!

stewie said:

dont even worry about the stock filter on the AW4. its more of a screen than anything else. if your worried about it put on a remote filter in the lines, a trans cooler (not just the thing in the radiator), and a temp guage.

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I have never thought about putting in a remote filter off the lines, are they set up just like the remote setups for engine oil?

Your right about the so called "cooler" in the radiator, what a joke.

Look in Summit. It is just like the remote engine oil filter.

I don't know man... if you've gotten 300k miles out of that tranny doing what you're doing, I'd keep it up. The factory tranny/radiator setup may seem strange to us layman, but it's obviously been part of the equation in keeping that thing going for this long. It's really designed to get the tranny up to temperature faster and not so much for cooling.