transmission bushing tool - update

[Henn28]

***update***
So I just kept rolling yesterday and used the swazall to get the bushing out. Today I’ll lube up the new one and see if it will go in without too much drama. Rebuild thread to follow. Thanks to the guys who did this before me and posted.

I’m waiting on a larger micrometer to arrive so I can gnats-ass the journals in the 4.4 and feel good about ordering the correct bearing sizes. When I swapped the motor 2 years ago I lengthened my splines with the aftermarket spline solution and was able to get another 3/4” of splines into the output shaft, on top of the factory 1”, but the TCase end didn’t look amazing at that point and with 170k mi on it, the TCase is a point of worry for me.

So I grabbed the cheap TCase on eBay, and ordered a seal and bearing kit, and a new output shaft from Cobra Transmissions. I had a small sense of urgency since the Cobra folks are down to inventory on some LWX parts I was told.



The tcase is very easy to break down, especially the LWX version. Zip out some e12 torx and use a hammer to gently work the halves apart.



These splines don’t look fully stripped yet, but don’t look great either:



the LWX gears simply pull right out with the exception of the front driveshaft output piece, which has a dust shield on the output shaft. A rubber mallet on the shaft forces the gear out and the dust shield off. I didn’t pull the rear/main output shaft.



magnet looked good, just a little mud on it. Of course I don’t know how many miles are on this TCase, and the chain did have a decent amount of slack. I will say that there wasn’t very much oil on this TCase, and what little came out looked like crude oil. The TCase coming out of my x5 has 170k on it and I’ll be interested to see what the inside looks like after I swap it.



The one bearing that I likely won’t swap is the main output shaft bearing (under the chain in the pic below) since I read here that there is no place for a puller to grab onto it. I could cut it out, but frankly it seems super smooth and I don’t think is worth the effort. I also don’t want to pull the 38mm nut hold it the output flange on since I don’t think pulling that would give me enough room to punch the bearing out from the outside anyway.



Now I’m waiting on my parts from cobra now. I’ve asked them if they can press the bearing onto the front output shaft so I do t have to screw around banging it on with a socket, or take it somewhere.

*****
A quick detour from my motor rebuild....I grabbed an ebay LWX500 transfer case that popped up on ebay for cheap, and it arrived yesterday. My intent is to rebuild it with new seals, a chain and a new front driveshaft output shaft. The LWX cases are getting rare, and new parts are dwindling, according to the Cobra Transmission folks. Fortunately they still have these parts in stock. Once they are gone, or too expensive, it seems the only option for the LWX500 cars is to do an NV125 conversion. Cobra says this entails using the output shafts from the LWX case, in the NV125, or that what I understood. Obviously if the parts aren't available though, things get harder as my limited research seems to indicate the two cases aren't interchangeable.

Rebuilding a donor piece worked out well for me on the rear diff, so I'll do the same with the tcase, and swap it into the car when I get it done. My OE case has 170k on it and I'm ready for some peace of mind on this particular part. I've cracked the donor case apart and it looks very clean inside, with smooth bearings and gears fortunately. The output shaft looks passable, but clearly has some wear. I figure a new shaft, while not cheap, is great insurance.

As long as it is out, I'll put a new transmission bushing in it. I know it is a long shot, but does anyone have this specialty bushing tool I could rent from them? The back-up plan is the sawz-all and hammer route, but I feel that the proper tool would save me a lot of time.

So far breaking the LWE case down has been simple, with most of the time spent banging on it with a mallet to crack the case in half.

Thanks in advance.

[Henn28]

The 4 transfer case bearings and new front output shaft arrived from Cobra last week so today I test fitted it all, while I wait for the two output shaft seals which I bought from getbmwparts.com (along with 4 extra torx bolts to attach the TCase to the transmission as is suspect a few will be in bad shape).

After freezing the output shaft for a couple hours its two bearings went on with a little rubber mallet persuasion. The new shaft has a “key” milled into the splines which the old one doesn’t have and got me worried that it was somehow an incorrect part. Fortunately I had hung onto my old driveshaft splines as a paper weight and they fit like a glove.


Not sure why the new splines have a key slot milled into them, but these pics clearly show how badly the old shafts wear over time.



The bearings were a different brand (old ones were FAG, new ones are a Japanese brand) but fortunately they are all stamped with the part numbers, making the replacements easy. Below is the bearing that supports the transmission input gears, into which goes the planetary gear set.


The magnet pops back into its little spot:


Finally the new chain goes onto the input gear first, then onto the output shaft gear, before the gear is pushed into place. There is just enough slack to make this happen. Photo below shows the amount of slack in the new chain after assembly.


The only bearings I didn’t replace were the needle bearings inside of the input shaft gears, and the main bearing supporting the rear output shaft and ring gear. I’m not sure how the needle bearings come out, nor were they offered by cobra, and the rear output bearing would require removal of a huge nut to get the flange off so the ring gear can slip out, giving access to the bearing.



Still to do is to clean all the old, baked on gasket material without gouging the aluminum, clean the cases really well, pop the seals in when they come, and reassemble the thing for good. Not looking forward to the swap out, but I’ll do some other long awaited maintenance too while I’m under the car, with the stiffener plate off.