The Dodge shop in Bellingham, WA quoted me $600+ for a tranny swap. I
laughed, then decided to do the work myself (~10 hours to drop the old and
~16 to install the new). I also ordered the "heavy-duty" auto tranny with
the Kevlar bands, heavy-duty converter, and Transgo reprogramming kit,
however I bought mine from transmissionexchange.com for a total of $1,700.
Then I ran into a problem with torque specs (thanks John, for the email on
torque specs) and the 1992 FSM said to torque the flex plate to the
converter to 55 ft. lbs. That stripped out the converter ($200 for a new
one). I then went to the local Dodge shop looking for the correct specs and
the "tranny guy" said he NEVER follows the torque specs in the FSM, he just
uses that lock-tight glue stuff. YIKES!!!! That scared me enough to never
take my Dodge there again. So, just make sure your mechanic didn't get the
same training that this one did! But $400 seems a lot more reasonable than
$600. Good luck!
Shane Craven
92 CC LE 4x4 auto 3.9L
Bellingham, WA
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Meyerhoff [mailto:mike@mypants.org]
Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 2:58 PM
To: dakota-truck@dakota-truck.net
Subject: DML: tranny solution
Seemed like there was a bunch of tranny problems on list at the same time,
mine included. I settled on a solution today and thought some others might
be interested.
I ordered a "street/strip" 42rh from HughesPerformance today. It will come
with all the good stuff (keolene steels, race frictions, kevlar bands).
They were knowledgable when I called and very helpful. Anybody else buy
anything from them?
I'm also gonna order a Mopar converter (P4529403). It lists it as a
1900-2100 stall converter. What should I expect from daily driving with a
higher stall speed that the stock converter? (milage will go down right?)
The local dodge dealer quoted me $350-$400 to do the swap does this sound
reasonable? I'm also going to get some royal purple ATF. Hopefully the
dealer won't throw a fit about not using Mopar fluid.
Thanks for any input
mm
__________
Check out my dak's specs at:
www.mypants.org/mike/Dakota/index.html
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