[jrduchek]

Hi all. My friend just bought a '64 Impala. Not all that original, but very sweet. We've been told the motor is a 305. The transmission is a TH350. It was leaking a bit so we took the pan off, replaced the filter + gasket, and filled it with Mobil 1 ATF.

Car started fine and no strangeness in 'Park'. However, when he put the car in reverse (foot still on the brake) it started making this rather loud clanking noise. Even in my old muscle cars, I've never had anything that wasn't a manual, so I don't know jack about automatics and this is the first time my buddy has tinkered with a car, so we're stuck. The only thing I can think of is that the tranny needs to run for a while in gear to get fluid through it, but I'm not willing to do that without hearing it from somebody who knows more about automatics. We also didn't check it in any gear but R, just killed the motor when that noise started up.

Oh, also, this car has only been driven back to his place (one trip) before this (by him, anyway), and supposedly was not making this noise before.

Thoughts?

Thanks a ton,
Jim

[Lonestar]

Diagnosing noises without actually hearing them is difficult at best. First thought is that the two are not related. I would run it through all the gears and see if it makes a difference just in case. You do need to put it through the gears and then check the level anyways to be sure it is filled anyways.

[jrduchek]

We finally decided to let it run for a while in park, and after this, the noise is gone. I guess it just needed time to get fluid all through the transmission.