hey gang. i hope someone here can help me with a few questions. about 2 months ago i underwent a major project. what started out being a tranny fluid change, turned out to be a 6 day adventure on the hoist. (including going to my everyday job) one of the projects i tackled was the flex plate. it was broke good. i couldn't believe what i had to do in order to change this thing. i figured it was going to be a simple change. unbolt the bell, split the tranny and transfer case, few other odds and ends and right out she'd come. boy was i wrong. is there something i'm missing with the set-up on these trucks. i had to remove the rad and slide the motor ahead so i could get at the bolts and even that was no treat. so now i find myself only after 2 months, having to replace the flex plate again. is there an easier way to replace this thing? or did i do right the first time by moving the motor and such? i appreciate any help you folks could give me.

Thanks
Troy.

 

That sucks sorry. Your best bet is just to completely pull the motor and replace it.

 

I'm not sure of your question. Are you asking how to seperate the motor and transmission? If so, you have to take off the dust cover and unbolt the flexplate while turning the engine to get to each bolt. Once they are unbolted, you can unbolt the bellhousing and push the transmission back off the engine. Then, once the transmission is pushed back, there are just 6 bolts holding the flex plate to the crankshaft. One important thing to remember is mark 1 of the bolt locations with some spray paint or some kind of marking compound because it has an odd bolt pattern that can be bolted on only one way.

 

hey guys, thanks for the reply. i've already done the flex plate once, so i know how i did it.(seemed like it took forever) what i was hoping for was maybe an easier solution to how you have to go about changing it. from what your saying 95_318SLT, is that i can simply move the tranny and trans. case back and get at the bolts for the flex plate? that was my thought the first time, but i couldn't seem to find the room to move anything back that's why i unbolted the motor from the mounts and slid it ahead. is there a trick to sliding the tranny and tranfer case back? something i can remove that will allow the room to slid them back enough to get at the bolts for the plate? i didn't even notice that one of the bolts were different. that's likely why i'm replacing this thing again 2 months later. how do i know which hole that bolt goes in? i've already had this apart and probably put that bolt in the wrong location. thanks again for any help you's can give me. i'm just a truck driver playing mechanic so i'm limited in my abilities.

Troy.

p.s. nice looking trucks fellas. if my truck looked like either one of those 4wd, i'd be a happy man.

 

I guess I should have gone into a bit more detail. The easiest thing to do is to take the transfer case off the transmission and drop the transmission below the frame and slide it back. Theres no way to move it all back at the height it mounts at. I know its a tight fit, the manual transmission I swapped in has a LOT more room to work with.

Thanks for the compliments too! You should post a picture up of yours. We like pictures!!!

 

I found it made life A LOT easier pulling the front diffenential. The first trans was an SOB to pull, then someone told me they pull the front diff. I'm like no way just more work. well the 2nd trans, I got looking at how easy it is to pull the front diff and man was that soooooo much better to pull the trans. Just getting at the starter and torque converter bolts made it worth while

 

In my experience, the front differential is not at all in the way of getting to the torque converter bolts, and is a PITA to get back into place cause of its awkward shape, so an even easier way to get to the starter bolts, and to the bellhousing bolts is to take out the inner fender wells. If you have air, the inner fender wells can be removed in literally 30 seconds and will let you access everything at the mid to lower back of the engine.

 

I had a truck with the whole front clip off and it still was a PITA to get the starter out with the exhaust and axle in the way. and makes a lot easier to pull the bracket to get off the inspection cover to get out the torque converter bolts. In total, I've done about 20 4x4 gen1 dakota trannies. the front diff is not heavy and I lifted it back in no problem. I compared my labor times doing it your way vs' pulling the diff and I was over 1hr faster including the time to get the diff out and in. ALL the trans shops in my area do it this way also.

 

Thats fine, whatever is faster for you dude. I'll stick with the way that works for me. Its funny you say you were over an hour faster, cause I can EASILY have my transmission out in LESS than an hour (that was back when it was an auto, the manual I can have out even faster), so unless your just slow, you're not really doing the job "my way." And I can also get my starter out in less than 5 minutes, nothing painful about it. I've said it countless times... removing the inner fender wells gives you access to EVERYTHING around the engine without the need for swivel sockets or a rediculous number of extensions.

Anyway, Blewxu, you've heard a couple ways to pull it off, so it should give you a good start. Just mess around with it and see what works best for you.

 

hi thereman! i tried taking the trans. case off. i had it all unbolted and ready to come off of the tranny but i could only get it to move very little. not enough to take it completely off. i'm not doing this for another couple of weeks due to work, but i will be looking at things a little harder this time around with this new info.
hey 95... you take transmissions out in less than an hour... i'll have the beer cold dude...LOL. i'll be all weekend i'm sure. well the one good thing i have going for me on this project is all the bolts have all been never siezed. anyway, thanks for all the info guys, i really appreciate it.

Troy.

p.s. pics will be up after the project is done. we're planning a drive through the woods so i'll take plenty. ironically that's where we were headed when i started to hear that dreded ticking noise that eventually lead to this thread.