hey, im just woundering how to drop my tranny in my driveway.. have no jack or anything and im kinda stuck at getting the transmission back from the engine and getting the driveshaft fully disconnected. i dont really want to drop the thing on my head.. anyways transmission is a m5od-r2 type and needing wanting to know what is the easiest way to get it out; do i slide the driveshaft out of the diff then out of the trans or do i pull the trans away from the engine to get it off the cross brace? need to know how to do this before i get myself killed..

 

i guess the next step would be putting it all back in.

 

I would highly suggest getting a Haynes repair manual that covers your model truck. Read through the section that tells how to remove and reinstall the transmission. Look under(at) the truck as you read about any part you don't understand. Do this and you will be fairly educated.

You will almost definitely need a transmission jack, maybe can rent one. You will also need a good assortment of hand tools, both metric and franctional. The better assortment of hand tools you have, the quicker and smoother the job will go.

Ask here any specific questions you have along the way. I hope you live where it's warm, doing this in your driveway.

 

Should be two U bolts holding the driveshaft to the differential. Remove those or remove one and loosen the second one and slide the driveshaft off the differential. Careful with the U joint, there will be two loose ends, try to keep them from sliding off then wrap some tape around them.

You will need to remove the cross brace that is under the transmission. First position the transmission jack under the transmission. Don't forget to hook the belt around the transmission. Good luck, this isn't exactly a small job.

 

is there a special way to disconnect the feed line fitting into the slave?

 

When you have researched everything, get a transmission jack, it will save your head and will make everything easier, you can rent those at several places and it is well worth it.

 

The Haynes repair manual shows a way to disconnect it using a screwdriver. It says this works sometimes, it always worked for me. Otherwise there was a special tool, you might get lucky and find this tool at one of the auto parts stores.

 

well now.. managed to get the tranny dropped and the new one in everything bolted up and slave disconnected... the screwdriver trick didnt work and the proper disconnect tool that napa sold me didnt work.. so i ended up disconnecting the line from the fitting and then using plyers to get the slave line off.. managed to get everything all together and such in the rain and snow and without the trany jack..

issue im having now is.. my bloody drive shaft wont go in all the way... WTH! it leaves me with aprox 3/4 inch of the splines not going in and no matter how softly i try to line it up it get stuck and it really hard to pull back off.. ia m at a loss and am getting sick of not having my truck.. thing getting renamed from the beast to the nightmare here really quick..

 

Something must have gotten jimmied. Probably on the replacement transmission splines. I would take a flashlight and closely look at the splines inside the back of the transmission. Also look at the splines in your drive shaft. If you find a bad spot on the transmission splines, take a small, probably triangle shaped, file and correct the problem. You will have to be careful not to damage the seal, or just replace the seal.

I'm assuming this is a 2 wheel drive. Just curious, did you get a rebuilt transmission or a salvage yard transmission?

 

salvage trnny, also when i inspected the splines both trany and shaft they both looked pretty good.. shaft had alot of gunk in it.(old trans was CHEEWED!) i noticed on the shaft splines there was a spot where it looked like a spline was missing but it was machined as such and the trans i put in didnt have a wide spline to fit in such a spot nor was there a spot near the seal (which i think i remmber it being a little out of place now that i think of it..) wich had a spot for it to go.. trans is out of a 90 f150.

salvage yard said he pulled it out of a truck he was driving for a while. he also said he used it for a yard truck for a little because it was such a solid truck( hes also a chevy guy) and he said nhe wouldnt of taken the time to drop it out and store it if it wasnt a good trans.. also i took it by a local trans shop whos done some work for me in the past and they said trans felt brand new and asked if it had recently been rebuilt.. they never opened the top loader to inspect the gears and said they wouldnt risk contamination of the gears unless they had reson to. trans bearing had no play and even though trans was empty and ingear spun quite freely by hand.

 

Maybe the splines in your drive shaft don't match up to your replacement transmission then.

 

if the splines didnt line up then why would i beable to fit them in 90% of the way?

 

Ah, I misread what you stated under #8. i thought you said the spline wouldn't go in the last 3/4 of the way, instead of the last 3/4 inch.

I have to ask you, if you don't try to force it that last 3/4 inch or so, will it slide back and forth freely? Also without going on that 3/4 of an inch, is it short enough to fit on the rear end? If so, how much give (room for play ) would you have?

 

if i dont get that last 3/4 inch then it wont give me enough room to bolt the driveshaft to the mount which means it will dangle freely underneath the truck.. diveshaft will mount to the rear end but im out of ideas ont he matter.. even if i move it into the extension housing as slow and gentle as possible as soon as it gets to the 3/4 inch left mark it gets difficult to pull back out. and yes it will turn freely in that location.its almost like a chinese finger trap in there..

 

oops, now i misread.. yhea it will move on and off quite nicely can move it with 2 fingers.. then it hits that point and i have to reef on it to get it back out