There is enough room to remove the cover and look at the surface of the case. If the pin came out of the diff,there would be a big hole in the top of the case and cracked the bellhousing too. And fluid would be everywhere. Not just on the top.

 

remember he said he had pulled the trans for a pump seal (but you know as well as anyone that it's pretty rare for the pump seals to fail as compared to diff pins). besides what would cause trans fluid to be on top off the diff housing? the vent is like a foot away. there's no bolt holes anywhere near the diff housing on to where fluid would leak into this area.

putting the "front pump seal" leak and the oil on top of the diff, a failed pin would be best guess

Oh and he said after he drained fluid, it stopped leaking on the ground which would go back to the 'front pump seal' actually being a crack in the bell housing leaking out the front of the trans being misdiagnosed as a pump seal

 

I read the post again. post 12 mentions about the diff cover and your post 14 mention about the pump seal and post 15 mention they were running behind and said something about a seal. The member have been talking about axle seals. I'm lost

 

Sorry yeah I looked and it is a little confusing. I put a new front pump seal in back around Christmas and that didn't fix the leak, but I'm thinking I could have overlooked a small crack on the bellhousing (caused by the diff pin) because I was in a hurry--I know, a big NO NO!

I won't know till I'm in there, but I am thinking the metal would be pretty rough from the diff pin, I'd clean it off with some brake cleaner and stick it in there. The stuff I use isn't really very "sticky" anyway, so I may need to rough it up.


LOL yeah learned that one the hard way ;(
The K-member doesn't look bad to pull at all, but I think you have almost talked me into it, I guess my main problem is that I used a regular transmission jack and had a real hard time balancing the tranny on there and maneuvering it into place. Is there a trick I missed on that? Maybe and adapter of some kind to work with this strange tranny design?

 

I remove the hood and use a come-a-long from the rafters to pickup the trans into position. where the heater tube attaches, there's another hole next to it I use. makes a perfect balance point.

I took 2 head bolts from ford engine and cut off the heads to make alignment pins. makes assembly sooooo easy and quick. pulling the cross member is PITA. plus you need to disconnect the steering shaft and if you don't lock the steering wheel you screw up the clock spring. It takes me long to R&R the cross member over doing the trans R&R. and then you can actually fix the problems correctly!

or even better just replace the trans all together with a nice low miles unit (I've been buying them with under 80,000 miles for under $180 from area junkyards)

 

Wow that does sound a lot easier. That sloped pan is a bear to get on a tranny jack, and even then the center of gravity of the tranny is all wrong. For lifting, are you saying you use the bolt hole where the heater hose attaches (front and center and missing in the photos in the first post), or the one right behind it? I happen to have an engine hoist at the garage that ought to work great for that.

Which holes do you use for your alignment pins? I'm thinking I have some new exhaust manifold studs that would be perfect, or I could just get a couple at the hardware store.

And sorry for all the questions, but do you have a trick for checking a tranny in the junkyard? I know a few in junkyards locally, but really dread going through all the trouble of pulling and installing one just to find out it was the reason the van was junked in the first place .

 

there's 5 bell housing bolts to choose from pick any. you need a 12mm bolt ( I use some old head bolts from a 4cyl ford cuz they have the same thread. ) I don't know of any hardware stores that carry metric exhaust studs. but let's not worry about assembly until you disassemble first

as for the bolt hole to lift, instead of me telling you which one, try it and see which is best for balancing the trans. what works best for you might not be the one I like to use.

There's a bunch more tricks to make this job easy but instead of me telling all the them, Master tech can have the honor since his title says he's the tranny expert. I'm sure he forgot a lot more about short cuts on this job than I'll ever know. make sure you don't tip the engine too much or you'll break off the power steering pulley.

I don't buy minivan transmissions from the junk yard cuz they are usually bad and over priced. I use to rebuild them but then found that if I buy 2.7 stratus transmissions, they are cheap and have lower miles. then make any necessary modifications as needed for them to go into the 3.3 or 3.8 minivans.

for a while, I was buying whole vans from a salvage auction. I was paying $200-$300 and able to drive them home, pull the trans, scrap the converter ($90, junk what's left of the van and end up with a free trans plus extra cash). One van I bought was a nice T&C it had a rebuilt trans, 4 brand new tires, new brakes, new exhaust, new sway bar links, new starter. when all said and done that van netted me over $1000 profit. point is, if you need to buy a trans, look for some wreck, a lot of times it's cheaper to buy a whole vehicle for the part than just the part.


But as of now you're over running your headlights cuz you don't even have a for sure diagnosis of the cause of the leak.