Transmission Grindinding/squealing Noise

[XtboX]

Hi guys,

Hopefully someone will be able to give me a hand with my tranny issues. I have an Aus delivered UCF10 that I've owned for about 6 months now. Over the last few months, the car seems to have been exhibiting the following issues:

- rather bad vibration while in D, but not P/N

idle drops from 650 to 600 when placed in D

cleaning the IACV and T/B did not help vibrations

adjusting TPS to factory specs did not help either

- occasional jerk when shifting from P/N to D

- rough and erratic engaging, especially when slowing down or maintaining a low speed

most noticeable when going through a roundabout or driving in a parking lot

ie. if you slow down (but not to a complete stop) and accelerate again the car hesitates for a second and then engages

I then tried adjusting the tranny throttle/line pressure cable to see if I could get the tranny to shift smoothly, and the following issues started appearing:

- rough shifting between gears, especially from 1 - 2 where the car feels like it hesitates for a second before changing

- when slowing to a stop from driving speeds, the car would jerk when downshifting

- there was an occasional squeal from the transmission when reversing under load (up an incline)

- about a month ago, a loud "ticking" (on close listening it sounds like those music shaker thingys) sound started coming from under the car when cold, pretty sure it wasn't an exhaust leak

the ticking is present while in P/N/D/R, and gets louder/more frequent with increasing revs

ticking would stop when the car warmed up

- no diag error codes shown

I spoke to the last owner and was told that he had flushed the tranny with a "suitable for T-IV" fluid (Penrite MHP) about 6 months prior to selling the car. The fluid was by now turning slightly brownish. I purchased a barrel (20 litres) of Mobil 3309 (which AFAIK *is* T-IV) and did several drain and refills to clean the old oil out, which took about 11 litres. The ticking stopped after this. I proceeded to do several drain and refills over the following 2 weeks till the 20 litres were completely used up. At this point I was about to look into getting replacement tranny mounts to see if they would fix the idle vibration issue.

A week ago, the ticking came back, followed by a loud grinding noise as well as a whine that can be heard in the cabin. The noise seems to remain even when the car is warmed up. Does it sound like my torque converter is toast?

Thanks in advance!