get tranny past the Y-pipe?

[bigredscowboy]

Take your floor plate out and it gives you enough room. Drop the tail end of the engine/tranny down. It is enough room.

Does the floor plate bolt from the inside of cab or outside? This sounds easier than cutting the pipes and having them welded back

 

[bigredscowboy]

I will usually tip it back far enough to get the top of the bellhousing past the body seam, and then till it up to get the bottom past the y pipe.

Tried this for an hour. So sore. Do you have a body lift BlackBII?

 

[BlackBII]

Tried this for an hour. So sore. Do you have a body lift BlackBII?

Nope no body lift...I do have big muscles tho...

Can you at least loosen the y pipe bolts on the manifolds?

If you can get them somewhat loose that may give you enough play to weasel the tranny out.

 

[surffishin07]

if you can get the y pipe loose at the manifolds unbolt there and between the cat and muffler (not in front of the cat) there is alot more room to work there and only has two bolts compared to three. i just had the same problem replacing the slave. it took alot of pb blaster and two 10in and two 6in ratchet extentions to get it apart at the manifold. i really dont recomend cutting its just too much hassle to reweld in the truck

 

[bigredscowboy]

going home now to try to loosen the manifold bolts before this winter storm comes through

 

[LittleHorse]

hope you have better luck than I did. Mine looked like little blobs, and then once I used my special gripper sockets (like an inside-out easy-out) they look like mangled little blobs of metal. I'm pretty sure they will never come out short of pulling the manifolds off the heads to work on them with a torch. Hopefully I can avoid messing with them until the 2.9L blows up and I swap in a 4.0.

I'll try pulling out the floor plate before I get out the saw. Would be a good excuse to run some power wire for the amp I've had sitting in my garage for 2 years, while the carpet is up.

 

[rangerstzz]

I'm in the same spot...haven't got the bellhousing bolts out yet but when I do the y-pipe will be waiting for me. Y-pipe to manifold bolts are GONE. Car spent from 1990 to at least 1999 in Illinois. Damn that road salt.

I've pretty much accepted the fact that I will have to sawzall it out and then cobble it back together good enough to get 1 mile to the exhaust shop to have a completely new custom exhaust built. Hope you have better luck, I'd sure like to not have to do that.

Why not stop at the exhaust shop first, a little heat has those bolts thinking they're threaded into lead, a few bux and buy some new bolts from the guy and you save yourself one shitload of sawing/grinding/welding/busted knuckles/time under the truck...ect...ect and skip the trip there afterwards to get the pipe welded back together.---cheers

 

[UrbanRedneckKid]

I've dropped my trans 5 times. The part of my y-pipe that's perpendiculal of the frame rails, has been cut out and welded back in 5 times. I'm about to make it 6.

I get my trans out and back in about an hour, it's soooo much easier and faster to cut the y-pipe.

If you plan to unbolt it... good luck

 

[bigredscowboy]

victory is mine! bolts from manifold to y-pipe = no way. bolts from y-pipe to cat = got the bottom one but the top two gave me the middle finger. bolts from cat to exhaust... one cheater bar + extreme grunting = success. still took a while to get the tranny out but this operation gave me just enough room. Cleaning up the mess the crankcase seal left and will try to put it all back together tomorrow morning when I get the seal and shifter bushings. Hope the tranny wants to go back in (might hammer some of the firewall/floorboard joint upwards) High tomorrow: 16F. Birrrrrr

already snowing when I finally got the tranny out (does this look redneck to anyone else)

 

[kodiak024]

whoa hold up a damn second

I had the same problem my bolt's were damn near rusted off, drain the transmission overnight remove the shifter assembly and jimmy the transmission past the y pipe with the shifter removed and the fluid drained you can turn the transmission around until the transmission is out, and really its not heavy so it won't hurt when it falls out

 

[UrbanRedneckKid]

You better be really careful putting it back in that way. One little slip up and the disc moves and the tranny comes right back out...

With the tranny out, and more access. Take an attempt at replacing those upper y-pipe bolts.

 

[LittleHorse]

this should be good for a laugh. I took a picture of one of the bolts that attaches the y-pipe to the pre-cat.

It's hard for me to imagine that even being a bolt and nut at any point in the past.

Stopping by the exhaust shop first is not really an option. I bought the truck in undrive-able condition. The clutch has COMPLETELY let go, as in it will sit in gear with engine running and not do anything but make some noise from the bellhousing.

 

[BlackBII]

Congrats! Glad to see you got it out.

I'm doing a tranny swap and clutch tonite on my BII, wish me luck.

 

[bigredscowboy]

With the tranny out, and more access. Take an attempt at replacing those upper y-pipe bolts.

Working on it. JB'ed the hell out of 'em last night. managed to get the Y-pipe to cat bolts loose. There really was no thread at the end of the bolt but they are fine where the nut was. Can I just get some new bolts from lowe's (galvanized) or do I need something special? Also are these bolts in the picture welded to the cat pipe, how can I get them off?

 

[cocoasranger]

I think they are studs which are threaded into the flange. To remove you double nut or use a stud extractor to back them out. It's advisable to heat the part of the flange near the stud red just before spinning it out.

The studs have a long thread (which you can see part of), a smooth center part, and a short threaded part which threads into the flange.