I got my trans in today around 6pm and started working on it tonight in my buddy garage. After about 2 hours, a few cuts and some sand in our eyes, we are ready to drain the pan. it took us awhile to figure out how to take out the starter, its kinda tight with all the lines running everywhere, and the little bolt on top of the starter was a pain in the Edit! I wish i had a set of ratchet wrenches! But for now we have called it quits for the night and plan to start fresh in the morn. If all goes well i should be on the track saturday night at countyline! But for now, i need some rest.

 

Just asking. Why did you pull the starter off?

 

fyi - no need to pull the starter.

Ben

 

Ya no need to pull the starter. the TC access hole is on the pass side of the motor. It's just a little hole with a bolted on cover and kinda a pain to get into.

 

Yeah, we figured that out today. Were were just trying to follow the instructions steps thinking for some reason we might have had to pull it out, but nope! no reason to..

Anyways today we pulled off the shaft, crossmembers and dropped the transfer case, Disconnected linkage and tomorrow we are going to drop the tranny and hopefully get the new one back in and reinstall the transfer case and get the shafts back in. Its going along, just at the speed of a scared tortise, but it is coming along. worked on it today for about 5 hours. Originally my buddy was going to do the work, but i wanted to be able to say i did it, and im much less wrench inclined than him, so dont poke at me too hard for trying to do my first tranny swap!

Dodge sure does love their locktite!

 

Amen to that!

 

What fluid goes into the transfer case? Trans fluid? gear oil?....???

 

ATF+4 in the trans and tranfer case.
Make sure you add a quart to the TC before putting it on the trans.
Also make sure you have about 17-18 quarts of ATF+4 for the trans job.

 

i have always put three quarts in the converter first.

 

Yeah, i figure ide just filler up.

 

Do i have to fill the transfer case up, or does the fluid go in from the transmission?

Whats the proceedure to fill the transfer case?

 

i wouldnt go more than three quarts in the converter or it will spill out when putting it in the trans. also it will take alot of tilting and turning to get the three quarts in, but they will go. it just takes time.

you have to fill the transfercase seperately.

 

the stock trnny have a clip that hold in the TC right? Where is it?

 

nope no clip. just spin and pull slowly. it will come out. whe installing the new one, make sure it going in three notches, you will feel them.

 

Make sure that you use the new torque converter bolts when putting everything back together... The stock ones will bottom out in a suncoast converter & not clamp securely against the flexplate. I had to pull my transmission 3 times before I figured out why the bolts kept shearing...

I got my converter used & didn't know the converter needed shorter bolts.

Ben