Tolerances for Valve Body Parts

[IPreferDIY]

I recently received a Sonnax pressure regulator valve (7694809) and a reverse boost valve kit (7694802K) from RockAuto. Here are a couple of screen shots showing these parts:



I went over them with a magnifying glass, and I’m a little disappointed. They wouldn’t be good enough for me if I was making/selling them. I’d like some input as to whether to bother asking for replacements.

The outer sleeve of the reverse boost valve kit has two slight dings. One is on a corner of the groove that the retaining clip sits in. According to the second screen shot, it’s the corner on the left that is not in contact with the valve body. Presumably this ding would not be of any consequence. The other slight ding is on the corner of the large diameter where it steps down to the small diameter. According to the second screen shot, this would sit right at the edge of the valve body bore. Since the metal does not seem to be pushed out to increase the diameter in any significant amount, I doubt this ding would be of any consequence.

The pressure regulator valve has a slight ding on the corner at one end, on the left side in the screen shots. According to the second screen shot, this end rests against the valve body and is not in contact with a bore. The metal is pushed out noticeably to increase the diameter of the end at that spot, but the flatness of the end is not affected. Hence, this ding should not be any consequent either.

What is particularly concerning is that the surfaces of this valve that are intended to be in contact with valve body bores look rather rough; not necessarily to the naked eye, but with a magnifying glass. These surfaces look a bit scuffed, perhaps not quite the look one would see from sandpaper, but still quite noticeable with a magnifying glass. I know any smooth surface will look rough at a high enough magnification, but these one are certainly not as smooth as I would have expected them to be. By way of contrast, the inner bore of the boost valve sleeve seems polished. (I haven’t taken the boost valve out of the sleeve for comparison yet since it won’t come out with gentle tapping, and I haven’t gotten around to getting out my compressor to blow any dust off before soaking it in tranny fluid.) Since the pressure regulator valve would be bathed in tranny fluid anyway, I'm not sure how critical its smoothness would be.

Are these issues worth the hassle of getting an exchange? To put things another way, are these the sort of things that might result in me having to mess around with the valve body again if I go ahead and use them? Thanks in advance.

[IPreferDIY]

FWIW, these parts were shipped from Taiwan.

[IPreferDIY]

I've attached some photos to clarify things. The first shows the box label and packing slip showing the parts shipped from Taiwan. The second shows the parts with their packaging, which indicates they were made in the USA. Both came with the same instruction sheet, though one seems lighter, suggesting it's a poor copy. The third and fourth photos hopefully show what seems to be scuffing on the right sides of the first and second spools, and it goes all the way around them. The fifth photo hopefully shows more of the scuffing on the right side of the second spool and might give some sense of the relative roughness of the fourth spool (the one with the grooves in it).



The outer surfaces of the spools are a lot less rough than the narrow parts between the spools, so they must have done some polishing, but it's certainly not a high-quality polishing job if that's what it was supposed to be.

The big white-looking marks on the narrow part between the second and third spools suggest something was holding the part during the blackening process (which I would presume is black anodizing). There are three such spots that are not equally spaced, so that would rule out being held in something like a chuck. I would presume these are inconsequential.

Getting photos of the dings is beyond my capability at this point, particularly with all the dust showing up.

[IPreferDIY]

Someone raised the possibility of the parts being counterfeit since they were shipped from Taiwan, so I ended up sending a message to Sonnax, which I probably should've done in the first place. Sometimes I don't think about the obvious.

[IPreferDIY]

Someone from Sonnax called me last Monday, and (after a rough week) here’s the scoop:

Since the shipping label indicated “From” RockAuto in Hempstead, NY, listing Taiwan under “Country of Origin” was probably some kind of free trade agreement thing.

Seeing Singapore would have made sense since they have a supplier there. One possibility is that someone made a mistake when selecting the country from a menu. He was going to follow up with RockAuto.

They have seen knock-offs before, and he said something along the lines of a Chinese company taking pride in how well they copied everything. But, he was something like 98%+ confident that mine are authentic.

The pressure regulator valve is ground rather than machined and polished. Having a rougher than polished appearance is normal for grinding. The tolerances are so tight that doing any polishing would be enough to take them out of spec.

The big white spots on the skinny part of the valve are from something being attached to it during the anodizing process, which is what I figured. Interestingly, the black in black anodizing is a dye that gets applied before the anodizing and not from the anodizing itself.

The bore of each boost valve sleeve is polished to match the particular boost valve that comes in it. There might be a gel inside to keep the valve in place. I'll be soaking everything in fresh ATF when I get around to it.

[GM_Guy]

So you used the Rockauto packing slip as your reference for country of origin? Don't do that, even if it is not listed on the part label directly. If the guy pulling parts has had taiwan for every other transmission part he pulled, he probably putting in taiwan regardless of where it came from. As long as there is no ridiculous duty associate with an incorrectly listed COO on that slip, ignore it.

Alex.

[IPreferDIY]

The packing slip only confirmed what was on the box label. You can see in the first photo that the box label says:

Country of Destination: CANADA
Country of Origin: TAIWAN

Even though the "From" address on the box label was RockAuto in NY, I was figuring it might be some shipping arrangement where it literally shipped from Taiwan in the name of RockAuto in NY. And I know next to nothing about grinding as a manufacturing method (I was figuring they'd pop these things out using a CNC lathe), so I needed that bit of reassurance before the end of the 30-day return period, which is from the order date rather than the received date. Better safe than sorry.

[GM_Guy]

Cross border shipments require country of origin listed as that will determine if you need to pay any additional duties. Even though it says Taiwan, its either exempt entirely, or you got maybe 10cents added to your bill to pay the taxman. Don't sweat it, whats on the package label is the one you are concerned with.

The warehouse Rockauto has contracted with made an error, so yeah, they should correct that.

Alex.

[IPreferDIY]

I actually got lucky with the customs stuff. Sometimes RockAuto includes all that, but this one was noted as a "they may collect from you" situation. They usually don't bother when it's through the mail, and they didn't this time.

[GM_Guy]

Shit. Never seen a 'they may', its always been collected on Rockautos end for me. They must know something ain't right with the database for those parts.

Alex.