I can go take the pan off of the 44re I'm working on (thanks for the reminder, did the shift kit, forgot to adjust bands), but I remember it being a 5/16 square. If it's a star it's probably a 5/16 (8 point) star socket.

 

I wasn't expecting much, but the gator grip socket worked very well on that 5/16" square stud end.

Now, tomorrow morning I'm gonna have to go by the parts store that sold me the wrong filter and gasket kit (ATP #B42). The filter was right but neither of the gaskets fit

 

Well, it turns out that B42 is the right part number for the kit, but they think that someone in their store messed with the particular kit they sold me for some reason.

My wife says when I married her it jinxed my ability to work on cars. There's a long history of things going wrong when her family tries to work on cars. I'm starting to think she's right...even the seemingly simple jobs always have weird things that happen and it takes way longer than it should.

 

Yes, an 8-point 5/16" socket should work, but good luck finding one of those at a parts store. I asked for them yesterday at both AA and the O', but neither of them even had a set of them. AA didn't even have the gator grip, but the O' did....cost me about $17+tax (ouch)

 

Sears has 8 point sockets.

 

Harbor Freight even has them for like $10 a set.

I did my 44RE tonight, and it was a 1/4 inch hex head. I popped the allen bit out of a 1/4 allen socket and used it on my swing torque wrench.

 

The adjuster in the tranny pan is not a problem, but, on a 98 they have that crappy socket size adjuster on the outside. I know a regular 5/16" open end wrench will fit it. This is what I do. But look in the manual, because you have to change the torque value.

 

If you order it on-line...or at least my local store doesn't stock them.

 

Man, why didn’t I think of that?

You got me to thinking…with me being a nerd, I couldn’t help but come up with a formula to calculate the torque setting adjustment for anyone’s torque wrench if they do what Zman shows in his pic. I came up with this:
TW setting = ( Torque desired x LTW) / Overall length

IMPORTANT Formula Definitions:
TW setting = the setting needed on your torque wrench to adjust for the length of the combination wrench
Torque desired = the torque you need to achieve on the bolt you’re tightening
LTW = The length from the center of the torque wrench's head to the midpoint of its handle
Overall length = measuring parallel to the torque wrench handle, this is the distance from the center of the bolt’s head to where the midpoint of the TW’s handle will be while tightening. If you use a straight combination wrench (not an offset one, as shown), you can easily get it by just adding the center-to-center length of the combo wrench to LTW above.

 

Theoretically, you could also increase the capacity of a torque wrench using the above technique and formula.