If I ever meet the people who designed this truck i am gonna kick all their asses!!

They put a damned cross brace right under the back edge of the transmission pan making it impossible to get to those four bolts without removing the damn thing!!

Now I see why they charge so much for servicing these friggin things!! You ahve to take half of it apart jus to reach anything!!

 

what are you doing?

 

Having a fit, isn't it obvious?

I am draining the transmission fluid to replace with amsoil. The cross brace (which hold up the transfer case BTW), in squarely in the way of the transmission pan bolts which run along the back edge. You have to remove this before you can get to the bolts.

A little persuasion (read hammer) and it came right off!! As of now, the pan has been dropped, both filters have been replaced and I am about ready to put the gasket on and re-fill the pan prior to draining the torque converter....

 

Ahh I see, I see said the blind man to the deaf man

 

how many miles on it? good idea, hard work.

 

About 25K on the clock.
They are talking about a 50K service interval if you drain the torque converter (14 qts total).

However, getting the lines out of the radiator require some kind of disconnect tool. Gonna go out tonite and finish draining the last 8 qts in the morning. Then it will be running all amsoil....

 

Did you get the special tool or how are you draining the converter?

Also, I thought a 1/4 ratchet with a deepwell would get those rear pan bolts, no? or will the pan not come off with the crossmember in the way?

Sorry for all the questions but you are the first 4x4 that I have read posting doing this, and I am getting ready to do the same (and the crossmember looks like a bitch) did you have to hold up the tcase with a jack?

Thanks,
LB

 

Hey LB

I parked the truck over the edge of the drive so it was nose up. At that point I just said screw it and removed the crossmember as all the fluid was gonna drain towards the back anyway. I guess you have been under there to look, so you have seen the two bolts on either side of the frame rails and then the 4 bolts in the center?

Even after removing them the crossmember is wedged in pretty good, I have a fubar that I used to persuade it out. The transfer case sagged somewhat, but nothing critical. I use the jack to crank the crossmemberit back into place, and I still needed the fubar to knock it back up (gently of course) to finish lining up the holes.

I went to autozone and got the 9.99 quick disconnect set, just a bunch of plastic pieces. If you go here that is what they kinda look like, and I needed to use a very small blue one to get it to disconnect. IMO this is not really the 'proper' tool as I had to play with it to get the wire to pop up, but it will work. A metal one would have been much easier, but there were none that were small enough.

The output line from the torque converter is on the bottom of the radiator/passenger side (don't be directly under it when you pull it loose, you get fluid leaking almost immediately). I had 6 empty amsoil quart bottles from the pan, and 8 for the torque converter, had the wife turn the truck on and off, as I filled one quart, I had my son add another quart until I went through all eight bottles.

All in all, aside from having to remove the crossmember, this was about as easier as changing the oil and changing the rear dif fluid. The front diff is a bitch to take off and put back on though...

If there is anything else you need or anything I missed, ust let me know.

 

...no no no... it goes ... I see said the blind man on the telephone, while writing a letter, to the deaf man... :-P

 

I thought it was "I see said the blind man; as he picked up his hammer and saw..."