Just wondering if anyone has some shortcuts on pulling and putting in a tranny from experience. My friends and I are replacing his with (Fikshun's) transmission from his parts car. What to do?.....What not to do?....???

 

I"m about to tackle this myself. Probably in a week or two. I'll share what I find out (both in research and from talking to my 7 mechanic...)

 

Lately... I can't be bothered to try to pull the tranny. I am getting so efficient at pulling the engine, the tranny appears almost bothersome.

I have an engine hoist, but no transmission jack, and it sure beats sliding an engine in from above than trying to benchpress a transmission in from below, while 75W90 drips out the tailshaft.

A few tips....
Before you remove the shifter, leave it in first gear. Dunno why this helps, but it has helped me in the past. Might just be coincidence.

Duct tape some HEAVY plastic over the rear oil seal (where you remove the driveshaft from).

Scuff the flywheel with some sandpaper. Even better, get it resurfaced.

Follow the break-in period. Typically no WOT, any RPM's over 4000, for 500 miles.

Budget yourself 8 hours.

Rent a tranny jack.

Work in a covered, floored environment.

 

I think that by putting it in gear makes it so the input shaft doesnt move...

 

i did my tranny with no tranny jack....all hand tools...it took me acouple of days...considerin i had school and all..it took me a total of about 8 hrs...not to shabby i guess for my first time? heh, and i got the tranny up and mated to the engine in under 15 minutes !!

 

Thanks, captain obvious.

But to me, it doesnt make sense that it helps. Wouldn't you want the tranny input shaft to be able to spin so as to engage in the clutch disk?

Regardless of why, it helps.

 

Take the transmission mount OFF! I didn't and it kept hitting the exhaust, which caused the trans to rotate, preventing spline alignment, losing my grip and creating an immense amount of frustration. Well, I did this by myself with no jack and once I was holding the trans up I didn't want to set it back down (on my chest, you see).
Oh, and once you have the input shaft in (not necessarily all the way, just enough) use the long starter bolts and put them in the very bottom trans to motor bolt holes. Not all the way, just enough to take a little weight and provide some safety til you get the splines correctly lined up.


Clean or replace the ground cables while you've got the trans out. It is much easier. Cheap too.

 

It took me roughly 36 hours to get my transmission in. Keep in mind that I spent most of the time mucking around while converting my car from an automatic to a 5-speed.

Change the Pilot bearing and oil seal, throw-out bearing and inspect the clutch hydraulics.

Get a friend to help out. Apparently when I need help my so called friends abandon me :P

My tranny was in neutral when I installed it. Also tilting the engine towards the back of the car helps with aligning the input shaft. Since I was on my own I had to jam the jack from the trunk between the fan shroud and the throttle body to tilt the engine backwards.

Since the tranny is already out you might want to inspect the insides. I miss placed my trust in a local parts seller and now I'm going to have to drop the POS to rebuild it...

 

I have removed and installed a few transmissions in my
time...LOL
the RX-7 (5 spd) is one of the easiest I have ever R&R'd
the worst one to R&R IMHO is automatics in 4 wds
and newer caddies...

 

Thanks for all the advice. But we are now done and it only took us 6 hours to pull his old one and put the new one in. But we had the whole car lifted about 1 1/2 feet off the ground, which helped alot. then used a jack to support the tranny while lifting, lowering, and bolting. I suggest that lifting the car, and having friends to help makes it much easier.-Thanks-

 

We got it done. It took me not quite an hour to get the car ready (put the car up, remove exhaust and have everything laid out) and just 20 minutes to pop the new tranny in. That's 20 mins to pull the old one, get the new one under the car, line it up and pop it in.

I did have the amazing help of my 7 mechanic, who dropped by.