I am now the father of two. My boy was born last sunday and everything was good. All I have to say is that an Epidural makes the process smoother for everyone
. I was able to get some stuff done before he came so I'll post that stuff.
Costco has a pallet of these for $50 so I picked one up for a future on-board air set-up.
I decided to go with a 4L80e because of the strength, the overdrive, and the fact that it will bolt straight on to the chevy adapter on the back of my 4bt. I did want an auto this time but the controllers were pretty spendy. Then I read about a trans-go kit that will allow full control of the 4L80e without a computer. I didn't find much on the web about it (drivability, shift quality, etc.) but I decided to go with it anyways (the kit). I feel I'll get the best of both worlds, stays in the gear I choose like a manual but no clutch to deal with on the technical wheeling stuff. It will cushion my drive line some and absorb some of the massive torque built low in the rpm range. I'll be wiring in the lock-up on the torque converter to lock in any gear I want which ='s engine braking and manual-like efficency.
Here is the kit
I read that instruction booklet 5 times since I've never worked on an auto before. The instructions started to make sense and once I got into it, it wasn't so bad.
Inside the box
I started to separate the valve body and kept everything in order so I knew which bolts went where.
Then I pulled the pump out since there are some internal mods you can make with the kit.
Back side of the pump
Front side of the pump
With the tranny sitting upright (like in a vehicle) this is the bottom of the top half of the valve body.
With tranny upright, top of the bottom half of the valve body
No turning back now! The kit requires some drilling to the valve body to modify the flow.
The separator plate that goes between the two halves of the valve body. Had to plug in some holes and file them smooth.
I found some the friction plates behind the pump that looked to be worn out so I changed those out. I didn't dig any deeper and while the wise choice would be to just pull out the internal chunk and rebuild it I didn't want to get into it that far. I did buy a rebuild manual and figure I'll be do a rebuild down the road after studying the manual. I'm just hoping there is life left in the tranny. This is one of the unfortunate compromises to get this thing back on the road sooner. So I cleaned up the valve bodies, got rid of the shavings and old tranny fluid still sitting in the channels and put it back together with some stiffener plates. I hooked up the unit that controls the torque converter lock-up since I'll need that. Overall it went together fine. I did have some roller bearings come out on the overdrive planetary that I had to get back in but once I figured out the trick it just took a little time.
Things back together
Picked up a 9/16 drill for the holes on the rear spring mounts, drilled them, and after aligning them on the frame I tacked them on.
Passenger side
Driver side
After double checking I burned them into the frame.
Threw some paint on them. I think I'll throw a coat of black paint over the whole frame once I'm done grinding off old bracket and welding on new ones.
That's it for now.
at least if I do, when shift it in D and push the pedal the rig with luck run backwards 
. No complaints though they're doing a good job and I just dont have the room (or time) to take on the projects that I had done. I still got some fenders to cut, on board air to install (the york), finish my half doors, fab my rear bumper, and then send it over to Metal tech for a cage!