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tranny installation issue

Mr. V

Active member
Joined
Jul 5, 2004
Location
Portland, Oregon metro
I pulled the M46 manual transmission from my '82 244 Turbo and cannot get it installed again.

Unfortunately I don't have the car on a lift: it's on jack stands.

I can lift the tranny with a floor jack but it sometimes falls off (thud) and when I get it up in the air and closer to where it mates with the engine I cannot get clearance as the body blocks it near the starter.

I'm guessing I'll need to spin it a bit, but cannot figure out how to do it with my jackstand and no strong helpers.

It's just me, a one man band, thoroughly frustrated.

Any tricks to getting it to fit?

Any PDX T-brickers have a low clearance tranny jack that might work that I could borrow?
 
They all do that. Hook on to the down pipe or something like that and pull the tail end of the engine toward the passenger side of the car and the trans will go right in.
 
Yes you have to twist the tranny a little bit to get it started to clear the body. The problem is on a 240 if you leave the exhaust downpipe in, it makes it a lot harder to do. 740 no problem, but 240 it's tight. I've done it by myself but I take out the exhaust downpipe. Then I jack it up with floor jack and after it gets up and in a bit it can't fall off the jack unless the jack moves out from under it. Then I get under the car and turn the transmission out of the way of the body and then slip it in and then turn in back to the correct spot and bolt it in.

Also don't forget to put the upper starter bolt in before you put in the rear trans crossmember..
 
Yelp, dropping the exhaust. I pulled mine in and out 4 times. The last time I dropped exhaust and I was like why and the world did I wait so long to do this. Its tough by yourself; get a good floor jack and good jack stands. Put it up high enough that you can maneuver around well. I put my tools on small tote lid. Good luck
 
I can lift the tranny with a floor jack but it sometimes falls off (thud)...
That would scare the sh1+ out of me :omg:

Sometimes rental yards have tranny jacks. Thinking older yards or family-owned.

Also be careful not to bend the PP diaphragm fingers with a badly aimed or erratically moving trans input shaft.
 
Do it on rocks like I do... sometimes the bear hug is the easiest way.


Come on guys it’s a small trans. Try doing it on a 91 Ford F-150 auto.. nothing but 2x4
 
Get the trans close with a floor jack. Strap up the tranny from the rear output shaft through the shifter hole in the body to a piece of 2x4 big enough to span the gap. It'll allow you to rotate the bellhousing but help with the weight. Next time I'll probably drop the exhaust... Actually have a tranny jack but Oregon is a ways...
 
Yes you have to twist the tranny a little bit to get it started to clear the body. The problem is on a 240 if you leave the exhaust downpipe in, it makes it a lot harder to do. 740 no problem, but 240 it's tight. I've done it by myself but I take out the exhaust downpipe. Then I jack it up with floor jack and after it gets up and in a bit it can't fall off the jack unless the jack moves out from under it. Then I get under the car and turn the transmission out of the way of the body and then slip it in and then turn in back to the correct spot and bolt it in.

Also don't forget to put the upper starter bolt in before you put in the rear trans crossmember..

There is nothing to add to that. Just what I do with my man tranny ;-). I worry every time I lift it with the floor jack, but it has never fallen off...
 
Got the tranny in.

I used a rope to hold up the rear, and also had a helper there controlling the jack while I was up front eyeballing the fitting of the shaft and spinning the tranny into place.

What a nightmare!

Thanks T-brickers.
 
Got the tranny in.

I used a rope to hold up the rear, and also had a helper there controlling the jack while I was up front eyeballing the fitting of the shaft and spinning the tranny into place.

What a nightmare!

Thanks T-brickers.

The 'magic rope trick' is what I used to use all the time, usually with a helper on the rope. It's far easier for them to lift the bulk of the weight, standing off to the side. And the rope lets the trans rotate, swing left and right, back and forth. While you just deal with the front end of the trans underneath there.

I even did that by myself once, I tied a loop in the rope, had the passenger door open, and I used my foot in the loop to lift and hold the trans via the rope, while I wrangled the front end of the trans.

We finally got a cheap trans jack from Harbor Freight. Which still isn't as useful as you'd think on a 240 since it needs to rotate so much as it goes in.
 
I have a trans jack, one for automatic transmissions, that I could not use for this task due to clearance problems (it is too tall: car up on jack stands, could get no taller).

I used my heavy duty floor jack, a big bruiser with a fairly small saddle.

The saddle wouldn't provide enough lateral support which allowed the bottom of the transmission to shift and sometimes fall off the jack (look out below!).

To solve that problem I cut a very shallow "V" across the top, flat surface of a one foot long 2X4, drilled a hole in the center (I drilled out / recessed the hole a bit to account for the length of the bolt head), and bolted it on to the jack instead of the saddle.

It helped with stability, no question.
 
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