The year 2019 marked the 60th Anniversary of TransGo, the company first responsible for providing technicians with quick and easy drop-in fixes for the most troublesome transmission complaints originating in the valve body.
Today, TransGo is an industry leader in advanced automatic transmission solutions manufacturing and engineering technical data, Shift Kits®, Reprogramming Kits™ and specialty components.
After serving in the US Army, TransGo founder Gil Younger, discovered his passion for transmission diagnosis and repair while working as a mechanic at a California dealership. After authoring several of the very first transmission technical bulletins, Younger quit his job at the dealership to start his own transmission repair shop.
Younger recognized that most common transmission complaints related to issues occurring inside the valve body. He spent weekends delivering some of the industry’s first technical rebuilding seminars, while engineering and manufacturing transmission fixes from his shop bench late into the night.
In 1959, Gil opened TransCo, which became TransGo, a valve body repair kit company whose primary goal was to diagnose, correct, prevent and reduce transmission complaints with time-saving and easy fixes. During Gil’s ownership of TransGo, the company collected a long list of industry firsts; the first ‘valve body repair kit’, the first to engineer and manufacture lengthened valve lands, the first to oversize a bore for replacement valves and the high performance valve body kit.
By 1969, TransGo had already established a solid reputation engineering and producing different valve body repair kits. Builders knew for certain units, buying a TransGo valve body repair kit was as essential as an overhaul kit.
It was only after many years of friends and customers affectionately referring to these kits as Shift Kits, after his industry nickname, Mr. Shift, that the company decided to permanently change the name of these valve body repair kits to Shift Kits.
TransGo’s R&D team, led by longtime engineering director, David Hardin, focuses on engineering solutions with the builder in mind by eliminating labor- intensive and expensive processes on the bench while maintaining a price point to keep shops profitable and competitive.
Some of the company’s most recent patented R&D innovations include:
New 2-piece pressure regulator valve system
Tuneless Technology, where all programming is done in the valve body and pump instead of the TCM/ECM
Universal reaming tools, like the one made for all GEN2 FWD Ford and General Motors six speeds, so builders don’t have to constantly shell out big bucks on specific tooling and equipment
