Well I may be in a jam on this one. Recently I decide to invest some time and money in my 03 SS, it has several common problems for a car of its age and I'd rather fix it up than get myself a new car payment.

What I'm dealing with right now is the fairly common 4T65e problem with the transmission control solenoids. The symptoms I was having was that on about 3 separate occasions (over the past 9-10 months), when hot the car would kick like a mule coming out of 1st. From what I was able to determine, this is cause by a problem with either the 1-2 shift solenoid or the EPC (pressure control) solenoid and I actually have new parts on the way.

I've been driving the car sparingly since I figured this out, however I fear I may be too late. Yesterday, while merging on to the highway I ran into some problems. While up-shifting from 2nd to third, the car began to shudder, and then kicked into third with an audible clunk. While this was happening the check engine light began to blink and then went out. Also as this was happening, I had my roof and windows open and I got a whiff of something that smelled like rotten eggs. I fear this may have been either the ATF fluid or the clutches burning.....

I got off the highway ASAP, and it was rough going back down to 2nd and 1st taking about 10+ seconds to complete each shift and surging the whole time in between and the car has been parked since. I don't recall the code right now but when we hooked a scan tool up, it came back with the code for long shift and didn't specifically mention a component/solenoid.

What I am wondering is, what can I do right now, with the car parked in my garage to try and figure out exactly where I stand. I will be dropping the pan soon, to look for signs of debris and shrapnel. What I am wondering is, are there any other tests I can try to perform (with the transmission in the vehicle) to see if anything has been damaged. Solenoids should be in early next week so at the very least we'll get those on and see how it performs from there. Anything I should look for specifically while the side cover is off?

At this point, paying for someone else to rebuild the transmission is going to be cost prohibitive. Also there is nothing used available in my area in terms of a directly compatible, drop in 4T65E transmission from an 03-05 Monte or Impala 3800. I'm sure I could probably find something a little newer or a little older and try to switch things over to make them work, but I'd really rather avoid that if possible. Any and all help and advice is appreciated.

Edit: I was just able to check again, it was throwing the P1811 (Long shift) code

 

I wish I could offer some advice--but I'm in the same pickle. About 3 months ago, I started having this kick happen only with stop and go traffic though. Even at that, this kick doesn't happen until after an hour of driving in stop and go traffic. I don't even experience problems on the interstate--I could drive 4 hours and not have an issue as long as I keep a fairly consistent speed. I'm not quite sure what I should or can do with this problem either.

 

Rotten egg smell is a sign of a clogged cat. A shudder is a sign of a convertor not working right. Long shifts and banging into gear could be the solenoids for sure as there not giving signals for correct line pressure to make the shift etc.

Getting the side cover off the trans is not an easy task while in the car so plan on having some time wrapped up in doing this.

Drop the pan and see how bad the fluid is and how much clutch mud is in the pan. Also rip the filter open and see how bad the inside of the filter is.

 

Ok so I have an update. I rigged up my pressure gauge to the plug on the top of the transmission. Everything checked out at first.
85 PSI in PRN ( min line pressure specs say it should be between 79-101 PSI)
78 PSI in D (specs say it should be between 74-86 PSI)
155 PSI in 1st (specs say 146-187 PSI)

however, as the car warmed up, the line pressure gradually tailed off in D, down to about 60 PSI (all other positions stayed the same). As far as I'm concerned, this does confirm that there's something not quite right with the transmission. I didn't see it jump up to max-line pressure though, but I have a feeling that it would have if I had been driving the car in that condition. I may be wrong on this but the understanding I have is that this low pressure condition is what would cause the soft-mushy shifts that precede code 1811. Eventually if the pressure is too low, the transmission can't shift, but instead of stranding you in 1st it throws code 1811 and goes up to max line pressure and produces that slam out of 1st that lots of us know well.

I dropped the pan and changed the filter. The fluid was very clean (it was only about 2 years/ 20,000 km old anyways) and the bottom of the pan didn't have anything beyond what I would think is normal clutch wear (some very fine black powder stuck to and around the magnet, looked about the same as the last time I changed the fluid). So the good news is no bits ect.

By far I am no expert on automatic transmissions (if anyone has any advice they could give it would be appreciated, I could be way off here), but as far as I can tell, since I didn't find anything substantial in the pan, it didn't eat one of the clutch packs. I suppose I still can't rule out some kind of internal hydraulic leak that is causing low pressure, but as far as I'm concerned the glove fits for a bad PCS and I'm going to be replacing that this weekend.

Here's a helpful video I found on youtube about the 4t65e.
If you look at his other videos, not only does he show a PCS replacement but eventually on a different car he goes right inside the transmission and takes it all apart just short of the final drive (basically as fully as you can disassemble one of these transmissions while they are still in the car). Anyways thanks for the help so far. I'll keep you guys updated.