I dont believe it to be an issue with the valve body as I just had it apart to install the tf-2 kit not long back and everything looked great and I was very precise with following the instructions to a T and everything went together as it should.
if anything I could believe what fishy68 mentioned with it being a stiffer spring rather than an actual issue or failure.
as I mentioned though, I can get under the car and manually move the kick down lever by hand...it has tension on it...spring loaded tension....doesnt bind or anything like that. it feels asthough it has about as much tension as you would feel on a carburators linkage when moving it by hand.
my issue is....I dont have another trans laying around to compare the tension to.....I dont know if the tension that I am feeling is "normal tension" or to stiff or?.
I appreciate the ideas though and I will keep them in mind...but before I go ripping the pan and valve body off I want to get some more ideas on things to check....if I still cant get it figured out then I will dig deeper into what the problem is.