Grab a coffee, and read my tale of woe...

[tim at unrealexpectations.ath.cx (stetson)]

THAT sir is a tale of woe and misery.

I feel for you on the tranny angle. Been there.

Tim

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
		-- Elbert Hubbard

On Sat, 22 May 2004, Mark wrote:

> I'm sooooooooo f'in pissed!!!!!!!!!!!  After a completely hellish day
> wrenching on the beater/tow bastard swapping the suspension from the 75
> (too many snags and PITA things to mention), I decided to swap out the
> fifth gear for the .71 I removed from my (now) junk older FF.
>
> The PITA saga actually began last night, when I attempted to remove the
> said .71 gear from my (now) junk tranny.  NONE of the procedures I read
> on the swap mentioned that the tube thingy that you're supposed to
> remove with a "special tool" is supposed to be threaded DOWN through the
> "fork" instead of up.  Someone also replied to my post the other day
> that I didn't need to make the "special tool", and to just use a pair of
> circlip pliers.  I proceeded to butcher the threads up a bit while
> threading the tube up, but I thought "ah what the hell, it's a junk
> tranny and I don't need that part anyways, where's my vicegrips...".  So
> after the tube refuses to go any higher and the threads are now
> COMPLETELY messed up I realize that I'm going the opposite direction I'm
> supposed to.  Ok, now what...  Out comes the trusty grinder.  I figure
> I'll just grind off the threads and then use a hammer and punch to
> slowly turn the tube down through the fork.  Well after about a half
> hour of cursing that would make a drunken sailor uncomfortable I finally
> got that damn tube free of the fork.  /Stuey voice/  "Victory is mine!"
> I should have just "went to town" on the whole fork with the grinder,
> but hey, I'm a glutton for punishment...  :)
>
> It gets (much worse) though...  That was just a precursor to the
> problems I would encounter today...
>
> So today I set to work on swapping the freshly liberated .71 gear into
> the 4K installed in the beater/tow bastard.  I dropped the driver side
> of the engine/tranny by removing the front mount bolts, rear tranny
> mount nuts, and the passenger side engine mount bolt.  After going as
> low as it'll go I realize that the driver's side mount is in the way and
> has to be removed in order to remove the 5th gear cover.  Here's where I
> remembered that those two bolts holding the mount bracket to the tranny
> were completely seized when I installed the tranny last summer.  I tried
> for a while before saying "chuck it", and just snapped the bolt.  Only
> one end came out, and the other wasn't going anywhere, cause there was
> just no room to get anything in there to pound or lever it out.  So I
> figure I'll just remove the other bolt and pivot the mount on the
> trapped/seized bolt to get enough clearance.  To my surprise I was able
> to remove the nut, but there wasn't enough room between the mount and
> the inner fender well to actually remove the bolt.
>
> At this point I'm ready to snap (especially after the maddening time I
> had with the suspension) so I resorted to using my favorite destructive
> tool - my 4 1/2" angle grinder, to hack a small chunk out of the inner
> fender-well to get the bolt out.  Cool, it works.  Hmmmm, even with
> pivoting the mount there's still not enough room.  Ok, well since I
> already cut into the fender-well, what the hell, I'll just grind out a
> piece big enough to allow the 5th gear cover with the mount attached to
> clear everything.  (BTW, this car is a total POS (which you'll be able
> to see for yourself at Cincy), so I had no problems justifying taking a
> grinder to it...
>
> Now with enough room for the cover to slide out, it should just slide
> off, right?  WRONG.  Pry, pry, bang, bang, WTF!!!  It comes out about an
> inch, and that's it.  I check all around it, and nothing appears to be
> hanging it up, so out come the big prybars.  A couple back and forth
> pries and it pops out!  "Victory is mine!" I actually said out loud as I
> hastily pulled the freed cover from the tranny.  Well guess what also
> came with the cover.  Yup, you guessed it, the rod that ABSOLUTELY,
> POSITIVELY CANNOT come out, or a complete tranny disassembly is required
> to put it back in.
> FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!  So after
> wheeling all the tools, wheels, and anything else within reach as far as
> I could throw them, and entering a blind rage that I'm sure was quite
> entertaining to anyone watching, I came to the realization that I'd have
> to cancel my (already paid for) vacation long-weekend to Quebec I was
> supposed to be leaving for in the morning.  If I waited until after the
> weekend to swap a  tranny from my 80 S into the car I wouldn't have
> enough time before heading out for my trip to Missouri next week to pick
> up the 77.  So now I have a weekend of multiple tranny removals and
> installs to look forward to, while paying for a vacation I'm not on...
>
> I suck...
>
> Mark.
> 75
> 77
> 80 S
> 81
> 81 S  2.0 ABA/JH/f'ed up 4K
>
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