I spent about 30 years as a dealership mechanic as my "first career" so to speak. Rebuilding a transmission is about half following directions, another 3/8 common sense, and the rest is so-called tricks of the trade.
First thing to know is that if you have overhauled older transmissions, most of the techniques are still the same.
Second thing is to see some of the similarities between older units and newer ones. The 4L60 is the evolution of the TH350. Basically, they extended the case and fit in an overdrive setup in the front end of it. The back end still has similar components to the 350. The 700R4 was basically the first generation of adding an overdrive speed to a 350. 4L60 and 4L65 are the 700R4 with electronics replacing many of the mechanical controls.
Third thing is not to let the "parts count" intimidate you. When you take a drum apart, you will have a housing, a piston, a couple of seals, a handful of springs, and the retainer and snap ring that holds it all together. For that one simple function, you might be looking at 30 to 40 parts if counted individually. Multiply that b y 3 or 4 drums in some units and it adds up.
As another poster put it, there should not be any parts left over - in MOST cases. There are exceptions. Sometimes there are modifications that call for the elimination of certain parts to improve the function of the unit.
The main things that I have found to be primary causes of failure of 4L60 transmissions:
1) This transmission uses steel check balls in the valve body. Over the course of time, they beat up the separator plate where they seat. At some point, they either punch all the way through or just get stuck in the plate. This interferes with the normal operation of the hydraulics internally, and causes failure. This plate should be replaced at every rebuild.
2) Flimsy and poorly constructed gear train components that fail under pressure. Some components that should have been made of stronger materials were made out of cheaper stampings rather than the forgings or machined castings that they SHOULD have been made from. This caused quite a bit of breakage in some of the units found behind more powerful engines.
The main tools that you need are a spring compressor for disassembling and re-assembling the clutch drums, special tools for replacing the Teflon seal rings on the shafts, and a tool for compressing the springs in the servo.
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