Transmission swap

Should I or shouldn’t I


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    11

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TrinidadLR4

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Good luck, this is a thread I'll be following closely. Having done the transmission pan service, I am curious to see how the removal of the entire transmission goes. The car and the transmission looked to be developed in a siloed manner, with seemingly little to no thought about accessibility in some cases.
 

mbw

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Good luck, this is a thread I'll be following closely. Having done the transmission pan service, I am curious to see how the removal of the entire transmission goes. The car and the transmission looked to be developed in a siloed manner, with seemingly little to no thought about accessibility in some cases.

It's all meant to be a body off service though. If a dealer did it, they would take the body off.
 

mklinker

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OP, taking the body off the truck isn't as hard as it sounds. I've done it with a 2011 range rover sport, in a garage, without a lift/etc. I could walk you through our process if you are interested.
While you have the body off, you've got a lot of space to do all kinds of maintenance on your chassis.
 

avslash

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OP, taking the body off the truck isn't as hard as it sounds. I've done it with a 2011 range rover sport, in a garage, without a lift/etc. I could walk you through our process if you are interested.
While you have the body off, you've got a lot of space to do all kinds of maintenance on your chassis.


I would love to hear the details on this.

I know it is very commonly done on F250/350 diesel trucks for service. Would love to know how involved the process is for our trucks.
 

mklinker

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I would love to hear the details on this.

I know it is very commonly done on F250/350 diesel trucks for service. Would love to know how involved the process is for our trucks.

The process is fairly straight forward if you get the workshop manual for the truck... it spells out every connection, hose, part you have to take off prior to lifting the body off. Frankly, nothing difficult.

Once you do all of that and take out the big body-bolts, things get more intense, especially without a lift. Our approach was to jack each side of the body up 2 inches at a time, alternating left and right, and slowly building up cribbing with 2x4's to support the body. You can jack the body up via the rails on the bottom/side of the body. We lifted the body up about ~3 feet. At this point the body was lifted, but the cribbing was under the body rails. We then built a couple of big/long beams to support the weight of the car between the cribbing towers and spread the cribbing towers apart so we could roll the chassis forward. At that point, the engine/trans/everything was accessible. Putting the body back on was the same process... just make sure the body mount holes line up.

Fun fact: You have to disconnect all of the brake lines, so you end up losing most of the brake fluid. The engine wont start until it senses you pushing on the brake, and pressure in the brake lines. Basically, until you bleed the brakes, the engine wont start and can cause severe anxiety. Ask me how we found that one out...

If someone is actually considering this, please reach out to me. There are a lot of things we learned, etc.

IMG_5508.jpg IMG_5510.jpg IMG_5496.jpg IMG_5504.jpg IMG_5495.jpg
 

Bogwhoppit

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Good luck mate. If you were a bit closer to NJ I'd come over and give you a hand. Its always good to have some moral support. I remember changing my Series 2 gearbox over a ditch on the side of a road lol. The Rover SD1 V8 conversion it had used to destroy them. In fact after we dropped the old one out, me and my mate had a hell of a time lining the replacement back up, damn input shaft wouldn't line up, so we left it and went down the pub. Came back about 4 hours later sufficiently lubricated, and the bstard slicked right in! Even had to chuck the spare in the ditch to sit the jack on because it was a bit boggy. This is a whole other ballgame, so I'm rooting for you!
 

scott schmerge

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Good luck mate. If you were a bit closer to NJ I'd come over and give you a hand. Its always good to have some moral support. I remember changing my Series 2 gearbox over a ditch on the side of a road lol. The Rover SD1 V8 conversion it had used to destroy them. In fact after we dropped the old one out, me and my mate had a hell of a time lining the replacement back up, damn input shaft wouldn't line up, so we left it and went down the pub. Came back about 4 hours later sufficiently lubricated, and the bstard slicked right in! Even had to chuck the spare in the ditch to sit the jack on because it was a bit boggy. This is a whole other ballgame, so I'm rooting for you!
Note to self, at minimum, 48 fluid ounces of alcohol required. Any suggestions on fluid type?
 

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