All in - pulling the 4.6 engine and trans to fix oil leaks once and for all

[TiAgX5]

Those pic make the $6k price for a ZF reman trans seem like a bargain!

[RRPhil]

Lovin’ the clutch spring compression tools. Fabulous!

To be honest I don’t bother extracting the output shaft support needle roller bearing from the F-brake drums anymore (never seen a spalled one yet), there’s too much risk of cracking the aluminium in my opinion.



Anyway, it’s easy enough to clean and relubricate in-situ.

If you do decide to remove it, make sure it goes back in with the rounded end first (i.e. with the part marking uppermost against the snap ring).

Phil

[LVP]

"Installation is reverse of removal". Ahahahaha. I applaud you for taking it right to the end. Your documentation is great. Can't wait to see it all back together. Cheers.

[stunt]

Using the 4" cleanout (it was a perfect fit) I was able to get out the oil dam in cylinder A.



Once again, all O-rings look good.



I picked up a 6" cleanout for the D spring. At first it did not work, but once I grinded down the outside edge like this, it worked like a charm.



Retaining ring removed



And the removed O-rings. Looks good as usual.



Pushed out the bushing in the D/E housing using a plastic trim removal tool and a rubber faced hammer



So here are the $15 worth of spring compression tools I made



I went to NAPA to look for a snap ring removal tool but their selection was awful, only small stuff. Went to Sears and picked up the largest one they had, which was only slightly larger that the ones I already had. After about 10 minutes I finally managed to get the outer snap ring out, but I gave up on the inner one after another 15 minutes.



Guess I'll have to order one online to get that last snap ring out...

So other than that last snap ring, everything but the valve body is now completely disassembled with no obvious cause for the failsafe discovered. I'll go ahead and inspect and measure the remaining clutch packs next, but I don't suspect I'll find anything suspect.

I wonder how much the test plate for clutches A-F cost? I'll definitely want to verify all pistons operate correctly before re-installing the transmission. Maybe a metal shop can make one for me cheaper?

Finally a shot of the back corner of my shop. I moved the parts cleaner and shop press into that corner cleaning all parts will go smoothly. I'll probably start that process soon and then "paint" and bag everything.

You can also see that I got the lower shelf installed and loaded my '69 SMB block into it and various other just from the floor. Bench is REAL stable now.

[stunt]

Originally Posted by RRPhil

To be honest I don’t bother extracting the output shaft support needle roller bearing from the F-brake drums anymore (never seen a spalled one yet), there’s too much risk of cracking the aluminium in my opinion.

Sounds good to me Phil. I'll leave it in.

[RRPhil]

Originally Posted by stunt

I wonder how much the test plate for clutches A-F cost? I'll definitely want to verify all pistons operate correctly before re-installing the transmission. Maybe a metal shop can make one for me cheaper?

Just make your own from a sheet of Perspex.



Phil

[SlickGT1]

Wow all this, and no real cause to the trans being messed up. WTF?

What else can be causing this issue. Maybe the wiring harness is messed up?

[bcredliner]

Originally Posted by SlickGT1

Wow all this, and no real cause to the trans being messed up. WTF?

What else can be causing this issue. Maybe the wiring harness is messed up?

Even if nothing is wrong Stunt gets a great bench out of it.

[BigBlack48is]

What did the filter look like when you dropped the pan??

[stunt]

Thanks for the top of making the test plate out of plexiglass Phil! I got a piece of 1/4" laying around that is large enough for the job.

The filter looked good as I had just replaced it less than 500 miles ago when I dropped the pan to change it and the oil.

To recap, I started getting the FAILSAFE message last fall when it started getting cold outside, which was about 2 months after I changed the fluid. If I shut down and started back up again after everything was warmed up (driving about 15 minutes), the message would not come up and the transmission behaved perfectly.

After about 300 miles of only having 5th and reverse, I checked the oil level, and it was exactly 1 quart low, so I topped it off. Unfortunately, that did nothing to make the FAILSAFE message go away. After another 200 miles, the restart when warm trick no longer worked.

The only thing I noticed out of the ordinary when the transmission was working, was that I did get a little push on the 2-1 downshift, but only noticeable when I specifically felt for it.

Been tied up with other projects around the house since my last post, but will hopefully get back on it this week.