Lol, yeah, thats why I've been saying if you work diligently and never set down the wrench. Like I said to that guy in the other thread (I'm not gonna start with him again, don't worry), if I got paid for 9 hours, I'd probably take 6 to do the job also.

I should also mention in my calculating the time, I live in central north carolina, the truck has lived here its whole life, and it is 95-99% rust free. I also do enough regular maintence on it that the bolts don't have time to get set in and become seized, so I rarely have to fight rusted parts. I can definatley see that adding a lot of time if thats a problem for others.

 

I don't know if I've done a job on the truck where I haven't had to deal with rusted bolts/screws which ended taking more of my time. What ya get with a Northern Illinois truck.

 

Rust is defnitely a PITA. Heat is your friend. My u bolts were almost 1/2 way rusted through. Very thin in the bucket part of the lower plate.

I would say that with hand tools, working at a good pace 3 hours should be more than enough. A body lift made everything much easier to get to.

 

I agree! I installed my body lift the weekend before I did the transmission swap and it gave a lot more room to work. I would definatley say 3 hours is reasonable for all hand tools, but knowing me, if I had to take all the bolts out by hand, I'd stop every 30 minutes to rest for an hour!! I will never regret buying the air compressor and tools I have, it has saved me countless hours of working on my truck.

 

holy crap u must be a trans god. it took me an hour to get the tranfer case out. there are 2 nuts on top that were a pig bastard to get out. it took me 10min for each drive shaft, 40 min for the case it-self, 1/2 hour to get both inner fenders out theres a butt load of bolts and stuff i had to take out and rusty fasteners up the ace. 15min for the trans crossmember, thats like a puzzle to work it out. 20 min for starter to weasle that bitch out, 1./2 hr for the freaking brackets, 10min for torque converter bolts, i just torched the exhaust pipe bolts 2min perside. i have over 10k in snapon tools and a floor trans jack. man if you a GOD if you crank out a dak 4x4 trans in an hour. i was in the Dodge dealer this morning and their best trans guy don't believe it. he says min for him out is 2hrs and back in is about 3hrs. but he said he just about does 2 in the flat rate of just one.

forgot to mention, i asked the chrysler mech about the front diff and he says he takes it out because it frees up a lot of room and he doesn't pull the inner fenders. he kinda snickered at me when i told him i did. he said it would have been easier and quicker to pull the front axle because it makes getting at all the bracket bolts, starter and torque converter so much easier. I kinda wish i would just when there to ask but it was sunday and i needed to get the thing out. tonight, i'll be tearing into the trans. i'm sure the rear clutch is fried.

 

I can understand both ways free up a lot of space for getting wrenches to the bolts, but the reason I pull the inner fender wells is to get to the top bellhousing bolts, because removing the front axle definately does not help there. That and I have an impact gun that will spin out those dozen or so bolts in about 30 seconds flat.

 

Has nothing to do with that. Honestly I dont care if you believe me or not. I had just finished installing my transfer case, so nothing was seized. And I was good at the process.

If it takes you 30 minutes to pull the starter than either your truck is set up much differently than mine or you must have some serious rust issues. Cus I work with a 200 dollar craftsman tool set, and no air. My compressor broke.

Probably doesnt hurt that I took out 2 transmissions from dakotas that week.

 

holy cow, you should be a tire changer on a nascar team. there's so much stuff on the inner fenders I had to take off that took longer than 30 sec. I easily got of the top bellhousing bolts with a gear wrench on most then I used a 2' long wobble extension over the top. that only took like 45sec. whats the secret for the top two tranfer case nuts? and fighting out that sob? it took me long on the starter because getting at the wire connections sucked and the top bolt was a pita.

if these things are so damn easy why does the flat rate show over 9hrs? are they missing something about this cuz is sounds like from you that it shouldn't takemore than 2.5hrs to go out and in 1hr out and figgure 1.5 in.?

 

I think that 9 hours has to be removing and installing, but I'm not sure.

Lol, I never took the starter's wires off, I just unbolted the starter and shoved it off to the side. The only trick I know to get to the top t case nuts is to take a small 1/4 inch drive hand ratchet and a deep socket of whatever size that was and find the most comfortable position you can sit in and go at it. It takes forever with a standard wrench and a 3/8 drive ratchet won't fit up there.

 

If it helps for the top transfer case blots I used a Bendable Ratchet Wrench. That made it extremely easy. I also have the body lift which gave me more clearance all around. Here is a quick picture of it. I bought mine from Sears, Craftsman.