[Slant3]

This happened about three years ago ,but i was wondering what causes a torque converter to balloon??????When my ride was first complete It was cool....Then about a week down the road I noticed some oil leaking.Now I'm like "it's new and maybe something is loose"checked out everything and found it was comming from the rear main."WTF" I said.(considering it was a new one piece $40 silicon oil gasket from fel-pro).Drove it for another week (still breaking in motor)and the leak was a puddle...:Now I jack the car up and drain the oil. First thing I saw was a strip of metal about 2 inchies long stuck to the magnetic plug.I said to my friend "I wouldn't say this was a good thing"
I dropped the pan and felt the back of the crank and it was grinded down like some neglected front brake rotors i've seen in the past.I tore the motor out ,flipped her and saw that the crank was slowly being thrown front and back,front and back.Finally i was told that the converter was "ballooning"on me. Long story short had to rebuild and (lol to myself when i was looking for a new converter) because I bought a TCI anti-ballooning plate converter when I didnt ever here this term before.Now I am told they are used basically in cars w/nitro.My car has no juice so I am puzzled why my converter did this ????Now it runs pretty well , some work still to be done but, WTF on this????
P.s. stay away from B&m 200$ converters----buy a 10" TCI

[DoubleVision]

From what I remember, torque converter ballooning is caused by excessive pressure. Check the cooler lines, make sure there not plugged or restricted, I`ve heard in the past some shift kits can cause this same situation from excessive pressure also.

[Slant3]

Well as far as the cooler lines go ,they were brand new. The tranny had about 20 passes on it before I took it off my friends hands.It ran well in his ride.I added a shift kit after the converter balloned.Since then I put another tranny in( re-built )and so far so good..I am still baffaled .rolleyes: