Well, despite a disappointing day yesterday, 2 hours spent wrestling the pan
and removing the trans mount and lifting the trans and other trivial business
I returned today and FINALLY got the pan off!!!! Here's how I did it...
Plan of attack for today was to pull the Y-pipe off the manifolds in hopes of
gaining enough clearance to wiggle the exhaust and trans pan and squeeze it
out of there. So I spray the bolts with PB Blaster to hopefully ease my pain
in extracting rusty bolts. I waited about 15 minutes and BS'ed with a guy at
the Ice Arena where I was working on my truck (I don't have a garage, and my
dad runs this ice arena so it works out nice, not to mention they have
torches, and bench grinder, and other assorted things I don't have) so I
crawl back underneath the truck with a 1/2" drive socket wrench and LOTS of
extensions. I put it up on the 1st bolt on the drivers side, and crank on
it, the nut snaps loose, I turn it about 2 turns, and it's so loose I
threaded it off with my fingers, sweet! Then I think to myself, this is bad,
the first one went WAY too easy the rest are going to be hard now! That's
Murphy's law, sure enough the 2nd one on the drivers side gave me crap...
When I turned it the little clip that's supposed to keep the bolt from
turning broke and the whole thing was spinning, bummer, well there is a big
enough gap to fit a pair of vice grips in the gap between the manifold and
the pipe retainer, so I clamped them onto the bolt and continued to remove
the nut, it came off fairly easily now that the bolt wasn't turning. Whew
one side down one to go, so I move on to the passenger side, I try to take
off the easier of the two nuts first, drat same problem as on the drivers
side, the clip won't hold the bolt! Double drat, no room for the vice grips
this time either! A quick call to my friend who I was talking to earlier and
a 3/8" ratchet on the top of the bolt and I was back in business, the bolt
came out nicely now! I thank my friend and he goes about his business. On
to the last bolt, I put the wrench on it and give it a couple turns, it feels
like it's coming out, sweet!!! Then I realize that this one is also just
spinning in the clip! Man this is just not my day! I had no room to work
with Vice grips with the oil filter on so I took it off and tried the vice
grip trick I used on the other side, no luck, I can't get it tight enough to
break the nut loose. Grrr... So I tried the Ratchet thing again, but this
time by myself, my friend was off driving the Zamboni. I got about 2 full
turns and that was all she wrote, it wouldn't budge anymore. Thank goodness
I had grabbed the cut off tool (pneumatic) from work when I was there earlier
in the day. I'd had enough so I fired up the compressor and zipped that bolt
out of there, end of heartache! I crawl out from under the truck and grab a
LONG standard screw driver and a hammer and knock the pipes off the flanges
on the manifolds. Back under the truck I go to try and wrestle the trans pan
out of there. AHHHHHHH, it still won't fit, all this work and it still won't
fit! Well, at this point I was soooooo close to BURNING the truck and
calling the insurance company, then a wave of common sense hit, and I decided
to pull the engine, exhaust, and transfer case to give me enough room to lift
the trans up, and forward about a foot into an opening big enough to get the
pan out. Well, I was just about to grab the cherry picker when I remembered
that the trans mount was still unbolted from the x-member, well before I take
the whole truck apart I'll try jacking the whole mess up again and see if
that 3/4" is enough to weasel this pan out of here... Well, it was! Woo
hoo! After 2 days it's finally out, I hope to God the fluid has never been
changed at 106,661 miles cus there was a lot of ick in the pan. While the
pan was off I added a drain plug, and I was going to adjust the band but
didn't have the correct tools. I guess I'll have to do that at my next
service at about 116,000 or 120,000 depending on how frisky I'm feeling.
Well, I put the pan back up in place with a Fel Pro gasket, and Wix filter
and added 6 quarts of Type F Just kidding, Valvoline ATF +3, I figured 6 was
a good starting point. Then open manifolds and all I was going to light it
up, I even started to turn it over when I remembered the oil filter was still
off it, whew that was close. So back under the truck I go to put the filter
back on. Then I lit it up with open manifolds, checked the oil pressure to
be sure it was up to par and gave the throttle a couple raps, boy does this
thing sound wicked with open manifolds, and it has AWESOME throttle response
with the 52 mm TB and open exhaust! Well, I shut the truck off and went on a
search for a new bolt, grrr, none to be found in shop, and everything was
closed on a Sunday night. SOOOO my truck is STILL THERE. I'll go to work
tomorrow morning, grab 4 new grade 8 bolts and bolt my exhaust back up and
finish filling the trans, then comes the job of cleaning up, jeez that isn't
going to be fun. Just thought everyone would like an update. Thanks again
to everyone who offered advise on how to get the pan out. Oh on a related
note, there is HUGE dent directly above the front drive shaft in the Y-pipe,
is that supposed to be there? I'm thinking the Y-pipe was hit at one point
and that's why I was having so much trouble. I guess I need headers and a
new Y-pipe to make my life easier when changing trans fluid!!!
Luke
1996 Black 4x4 Dakota, SLT CC SB, 318, 3" 2 Chamber Flowmaster cat back
exhaust, 9" open element Mr. Gasket Air cleaner, 52mm Ported TB, 3923
Autolites, A-518 / 46RE, 3.55 geared Peg Leg 8 1/4, 31x10.50 BFG Mud
Terrains, Alpine CD player, Infinity Kappa Speakers.
Coming soon: E-Body 8 3/4" Rear axle, 3.55 gears, Detroit locker, 10" Brakes,
and Moser Engineering custom alloy axles!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:57:06 EDT