Swapping my 700R4 this weekend in my driveway...is it possible to do it from under the car, or would it be easier to pull the whole motor...(please please please don't tell me its easier to pull the motor! ) And if I am doing it from under the car, how high up do i need to go and how do i get at the bellhousing bolts? I imagine those are going to be a pain, coming out and going in.

Any and all advice is appreciated...especially from those that have done this before.

 

Don't pull the motor just to pull the tranny!

How high to lift the car? Basically, as high as your jack stands will go should do the trick (you want enough room to work, and to be able to drop the transmission and roll it out).

To access the bellhousing bolts, I think you'd get at the top bolts from up top (in the engine bay) but probably get the bottom pair of bolts out from underneath the car. I'm sure it will be obvious once you get into the job where you need to be to get at them.

If you weren't planning on doing this, I'd recommend unbolting the torque converter from the flywheel (only 3 bolts) instead of leaving the TC attached to the flywheel, because then it will come out with the tranny and it won't spill tranny fluid all over when you're removing it. You CAN leave it bolted up, but you're just going to have a big mess to clean up if you do. ALSO, try to get a plug (there are plugs specific for this) to put in the tail shaft of the tranny for when you unbolt the driveshaft so you don't spill ATF out of there either. I suppose a clean rag would do though!

Good luck with your project!

 

i wouldnt recommend leaving the converter bolted on...its gonna be that much harder to put back on the input shaft later and if your not careful taking the trans down i'd imagine you might be able to damage/bend the input shaft if you start lowering the tranny before the converter is all the way off....in short, just unbolt the converter and drop it with the tranny....

also, you're not gonna lose much fluid out the tailhousing...i've dealt with a few of these trannies and it really just drips a little bit. a rag will do fine.

 

thanks guys, much appreciated...

now all i have to do is swipe the tranny jack from work and the 4-ton jackstands...i dont think my craftsman stands are gonna go high enough!

 

Just don't lift so high that the tranny jack won't reach!

 

I read on thirdgen.org that you can get all the bellhousing bolts after you've done everything else and you just lower the tranny

this is the link: 700R4 Removal

The link is for converting to a 5-speed, but the first part is about dropping the transmission...my problem is that i've disconnected everything but the bellhousing bolts and the tranny's not dipping at all, so I can't get at any of the bellhousing bolts


HELP! ahh!!!

 

Do I just pull it down? It doesn't appear to be caught on anything, so is this a safe move? I hope so, I'm gonna try it...

Another side question while I'm thinking of it...after I unbolt the tranny, is the motor going to raise itself back to its normal position, making it impossible to bolt my new tranny in? I hope not!

 

I just finished pulling mine out, and about to have my new one in.. I bought the book at Autozone for like $15 and followed the instructions in there.. basically disconnect the TV cable from the throttle at the top of the engine, and get under the car, put a jack under there to hold the transmission up (best to use a block or something so you don't damage the pan, or if you have a tranny jack, thats even better, I ended up renting one for $20/day to put my transmission in, but I just used a regular jack to pull it out. I removed the cross bar holding the transmission in, un-bolted the cross member going back to the rear end, took the bolts off of the driveplate/converter (I had to use my air compressor to get the bolts off for some reason, too much to do by hand), and then I used long extentions to get to the bolts on the top of the tranny, I just got in the rear of the car, right under the tail shaft of the tranny, and used the extention to go all the way to the top, worked great.. Also, something I forgot to mention above, they recommend you use another jack or something (with a block of course) under the oil pan to hold the engine up. (I'm not sure if all of that is necessary, but I followed what the book says and got my transmission out without a problem, and my new one is about to go in this afternoon).

 

You might want to pull your distributor cap before pulling down on the tailshaft.

 

So did you get it??

Hopefully you got it by now, but in case you haven't yet, I'm pretty sure there are 2 dowel pins (either on the engine block, or maybe on the tranny bellhousing? ) that help align the tranny onto the engine, so when you unbolt everything, the tranny won't just drop straight down.....you have to separate the tranny from the engine block first to clear those dowel pins, then drop the tranny.

Just thought I'd mention that incase you didn't realize that (but hopefully you got it figured out a couple days ago?).