Success! Finally got the tranny output flange off . . .

[gale]

What a total pain in the butt, never had one fight me like that before. Had to buy another socket & turn it down Bill R. style again. The seal had been serviced before & the flange nut was last put in with permanent Loctite. It takes heat, lot's of heat to break down Loctite 271, 450F to be exact. Guess I wasn't getting it hot enough the 1st time so if a little bit of heat is good, more is better right? It came off finally after rattling it with the impact wrench for 15 or 20 seconds. I bought another flange nut this morning just in case and was prepared to drill & split the old one with a chissel if that's what it was going to take.

If that wasn't all, the yoke flange was Loctited to the splines as well, but at least it pried out with screwdriver leverage without too much effort & didn't have to resort to a gear puller.

The seal surface on the yoke took quite a bit of polishing on the lathe with 600, 1000, & 1600 grit & WD-40 to smooth out the corrosion pitting, no wonder it was leaking, the lip on the old seal was pretty well shot.

Hopefully I won't have to visit this little chore again, on this car at least.

[Martin in Bellevue]

So, did you do all that on yer back?
Did you go ahead & pull the gearbox, I hope? Seems that once the exhaust is down, the job would be made easier by pulling the box. I sometimes appreciate the logic to make a bunch of relatively easy steps out of one or two som'bitches.

We put a fresh gearbox in Jeffro's car a couple weeks ago. Somebody decided to take the shortcut & trust the old seals. It did get fresh redline mtl. I left the bellhousing bolts "snug" in anticipation of doing the job again.

[Javier]

After enjoying you rich narrative in the old post and this one also, I can only say it's a pain you get rid of the problem so quickly, otherwise, I would have spent very nice times reading your "War reports"..... Just kidding.

Happy you got it.

[gale]

Just one more nite to go, decided to turn in early tonite & finish it up tomorrow. Yes, I'm grubbing around on the floor on my back, a wheel snapped off of the creeper. Got the new seal & yoke back in & torqued. I too left some bellhousing bolts "snug" but because they're the wrong ones. I since got all new ones the correct lengths from the dealer & will put them in tomorrow. No need to pull the trans, I'm running Amsoil ATF in it & it that doesn't leak, nothing will. I'm going to switch it over to Amsoil GL-4 on Saturday.

The seal on the front flange of the diff swapped out in a matter of minutes & put the diff back in tonight, which was the purpose of going back in & doing all this work to begin with, the diff was literally pumping gear oil out of the front & was leaving a huge puddle wherever I parked. The trans output seal was merely weeping but decided to take care of it anyway while I had the driveshaft out.

I needed to put a new rear support bracket on the tailend of the shifter rail, basically doing a bunch of tidying up of little things that I either neglected, blew off, or postponed when doing the swap. I anticipated having to pull the trans for syncros or bearings from the outset, & always felt I'd be back to do a few things over anyway, but as it turns out, the trans it tight so will leave it alone.