"We're a little like Pete Luban and Wayne Colonna at ATSG, guys who are on the phone all the time talking with transmission rebuilders.  After all those contacts you begin to develop an innerr sense of what lies beneath a rebuilder's complaint.  Identifying a recurring complaint is easy.  Fixing a known problem is doable.  It's getting from the complaint to the point a which we've been able to identify the underlying problem that takes a lot of time, dedication, expertise and testing.  Once we know what's at the bottom of the problem .  We want to find a solution that fixes the problem without creating any other problems and will be cost effective for the rebuilder.

"Dennis agrees with his bother, saying:  "This is where we've really made a name for ourselves.  With all the guys in shops that we work with on the phone added to our experience base, we can begin to isolate why it is that a particular transmission model experiences similar failures over and over again.  Sometimes it's easy to figure out, but other times it takes some true detective work."

Paul continues: "We can take something from a concept and put it under a microscope.  Jimmy Arledge developed the lube dam while he was working for a local shop.  He brought it to us as a rough prototype for AXOD.  He was making it from molded epoxy and grinding each on to fit.  He showed us planets that had 20,000 miles on them still looking brand new because of the improvement.

The purpose of the lube dam is to puddle sufficient oil so that those planets had some reservoir of lubricant when the transmission goes into fourth gear.  We took Jimmy's idea and built a 'dyno' that allowed us to observe what's happening in the back section as far as flow and pressure and temperature are concerned. 

After Jimmy came in with that idea, Paul and I took it from there and followed it through the testing phase and redesigned it from the epoxy piece to the steel product that carries the Superior brand name today," Dennis says.  "There were aftermarket tech services that at the time were telling their subscriber that if you put that lube dam in, the problem was gone!  The OE was aware of the high number of planetary failures and tried a number of fixes with tubes etc.  With the lube dam in place, the vast majority of those transmissions just went down the road and never came back.

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