Today I started the biggest pita job of changing the clutch on my Dakota. I have a few questions that are hanging me up....

2001 Dodge Dakota 4.7L Manual Transmission (NV3500)

I spent the entire day working and only managed to drop the transfer case thanks to the top bolt that connect the tcase to the transmission taking 6 hours to remove

So now onto the transmission and my questions.....The manual says I need to remove the exhaust pipe (y-pipe). It seems that a may be able to maneuver the transmission over the pipe and wont have to deal with it. Has anybody experienced this? I normally wouldn't worry about it but I attempted to remove the bolt clamps that connect the y-pipe to the headers and they are a pain to get to and feel like I am going to break the entire bolt and cause a **** ton more work.

Also, In order to get to the starter bolts and some of the bolts on top of the bell housing will I need to remove the plastic wheel well on both sides?

I do thank you for the help.....the manual is very detailed on how to take the transmission apart but not so much on how to get the damn thing out....I can't really find any detailed tutorials on the inter-web elsewhere.

 

Don't know if this helps any.... removal from a Dodge Ram.

 

Thanks I will watch that when I get home!

 

Well for anybody that ends up having the same quesitons...I ended up having to remove both wheel wells to get to the starter and to the 10 and 2 o'clock bolts that go from the engine side into the bell housing.

Next, I tried to wiggle out the transmission without dealing with the exhaust y-pipe. Didn't work...there simply wasn't enough clearance and ended up having to use a grinder to cut the bolts in order to remove the y-pipe since they were so rusted. LAME!

Got er all out though....probably took me 6 total hours by myself. Will be putting everything back in this next week. Hopefully I can get it back together alright...the wife and I sharing a car isn't working out so great.