"Do You Have A Trouble With Your Transmission?"

Ever since the Eagle first showed up on my radar, I basically knew the transmission would need to be rebuilt. Everything has led up to this, to finally being able to remove said transmission from the post it has occupied for lo, these many years, even since the beginning of time, 1984.

the cavernous void left by the transfer case, and the output shaft of the transmission as it awaits removal.

If you read the last post about removing the transfer case, pretty much duplicate that but for the transmission, and add in that it took a lot longer and I had to get some wobble extensions, and a u-joint to replace the one I broke.

a very, very dirty but finally-removed transmission. with the foot again for scale. 

 When I finally emerged from under the car, I was covered almost from the neck down with something very much like what you see all over the transmission in the above photo. Lydia had a good laugh, and I would have too if I hadn't been so tired.

The rebuild manual says that this thing has to be spotless before you even think about starting the rebuild, or especially before you even think about thinking about getting into the valve body.

a nice close-up of some of the cleaning that will need to happen.

I'm pretty eager to get started, since I gather that transmission work is the most glamorous of the automotive specialties:

The One Where The Eagle Loses Some Weight

It turns out that the parts stores don't loan out air tools. So I picked up a cheap one, thinking that now all my wildest dreams would come true. Problem was, the air ratchet, while it was more maneuverable, didn't have nearly enough torque to get the last two nuts off of the adapter housing. It also rounded off one of them pretty badly, because the lever kept getting pressed unavoidably by a nearby part. Air ratchet FAIL.

The above-mentioned adapter housing is the part near the top of the photo, where you can see a few of the bolts holding it on.

The rest is the transfer case. You can see my size 11 shoe near the bottom for scale. This thing is properly huge. (The transfer case, not my foot.)

At long last, I have slain the beast. 

Getting it detached from the transmission and out safely (yes, all digits are unscathed) was... harder than it probably needed to be. After realizing that the last two nuts were definitely not coming off of the adapter housing while it was on the car, I decided to take it off along with the transfer case. The adapter housing attaches to the back of the transmission with 6 bolts, none of which, luckily, were terminally stuck.
Once those were off, I inched the transfer case back little by little on its precarious press-board platform, supported by the questionable hydraulic jack setup from two entries ago. It got hung up on a couple of things, including the exhaust system and the transmission output shaft. But finally, after probably a half-hour struggle, it was out.

So Close, Yet So Far

This is the center cross-member that supports the transmission and transfer case from underneath. The transmission is now held up by a scissor jack and a block of wood. Not to be different from its nearby parts, it also had copious amounts of old mud on it, which we see me scraping off here in a photo taken by Lydia.

This had to be taken off so that I could get to the nuts that hold the transfer case to the studs on the transmission adapter housing. In other words, that's the separation point where I'm detaching the transfer case. 

There are 6 nuts, 4 of which came off without much drama. Two of them are higher up, and can't be reached with any regular wrench. Believe me, I tried. I tried so hard that I snapped my only U-joint in half in the process. That was the moment when I knew I was done for the evening.

So the next step will be to see if I can borrow an air socket from a parts store, since that will fit in the space and not need to be turned by hand, which there is no room for.

Prepping for Surgery

The Eagle’s transfer case is going to have to come out before the transmission does, it alone being roughly the size of a Volkswagen. For that I procured a “universal” jack adapter from AutoZone, figuring that since that’s where I got my jack, the adapter should be a perfect fit.

Well, the fit was less than perfect, but still serviceable, and the bolt that holds the top part of the adapter on appears to be made of cooked linguine, based on how easily it bends. A new one might be in order, but I’ll probably try to use it once to see how it works.

Boom. Check out all its majesty.

I’ve got the straps around the transfer case and I’m just about ready to attempt to lower it after I get the bolts undone. Wish me luck!

Seen On The Road

News about the Eagle this week is slim, in preparation for next week which will be much more significant. Everything is now detached from the transmission and transfer case, including the flywheel and even the dipstick tube. Soon I'll be obtaining some equipment that will help me lower them out, but for now, a few car-related sights from my wanderings.

This happened, at the intersection of Dobson and Guadalupe in west Mesa:

... and this was in downtown Phoenix:

Obviously, the bumper sticker will be a necessary accessory for the Eagle once it's roadworthy. Maybe a Mr. Fusion as well. Or at least an EFI conversion... maybe.