Mark, how many miles did you put on the 700R4?
I lost engine breaking in the 700r4 more than a few years ago and drove it like that for multiple years.... People I've wheeled with me at Truckhaven know how much fun that was...
I just got it rebuilt last year.. I think I was around 380k-390k miles, so figure I got about 100k hard miles out of the 700r4.
I'm blaming the failure on Bowtie overdrives building the transmission like it was for a racecar and not a wheeling rig. The converter stall was 2800 or so, they played with the valve body, got the pressures too high then added something to lower the pressure.. The first one bowtie built me didn't last 500 miles and they almost built this one wrong.. I was at their shop and had them double check the TV cable spring before we installed it and it was the wrong one... again..
The shop that just built this one got the stall down to about 2300 rpms, got the shifts to feel stock but they aren't slow and didn't do odd things to the valve body but they still used good parts (I have the list somewhere)...
~Mark