What a nightmare!!!
I need to relate what happened to me last night. I told you about the problem with the pressure plate in my RR in a previous post and was ready to yank it. I had just finished painting the engine bay before installing the eng and trans together from underneath as I had the whole frontend and k-frame out to replace parts and detail. I have never pulled a 4sp out of a Mopar only autos. The autos went without a hitch. How much harder could a 4sp be? What a freekin nightmare! Just to make sure I didn't miss something I read the tech manual and figgered this seems pretty straight forward. Got a floor jack under the trans, cross member off, lowered trans a little and propped up the engine at the rear of oil pan. Trans came apart an inch or so no problem but touched top of tunnel. I had a rag to keep from scratching tunnel at the top so no damage ...yet. I let the engine down at the rear untill I had 1/16 inch clearance to the steering link, propped it up and saw I had a little more clearance at the top. By now my home made wooden trannyjack attachment sitting on top of the floorjack was a little off kilter.I lowered the trans some more and pulled the trans back more but it touched the top of the tunnel again. I was in a state here to put it mildly. As I tried to get a bit more back the trans really tipped not quite falling while the shaft was still inside the pressure plate. Not too serious yet as the spline was not in the clutch plate. I could not got any lower on the engine. I ended up unbolting the 4 bolts that keep the bellhousing to the trans and in practically fell on the floor . Meantime I gouged the hell out of the tunnel, not visible from engine bay but still there and will need touching up. I take it there is an easier way??? Thats me though, go for it and do things the hard way and hope to find something usefull along the way. Oh, I did this by myself too. No major damage, trans shaft is ok. I'm rdreading going through this again. I tried a mockup with the bellhousing attatched and bringing the trans to the engine...no not gonna work. Holy, I just noticed how long this is getting. I hope I've entertained a few of you and am open to suggestions in getting this thing together without haveing to yank the engine.
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