Cascade Crew

chevymad · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 6:36 pm Post subject: Yesterdays tech..

Today at work I had a 64 pontiac bonneville that I needed to pull the transmission and replace the torque convertor seal. No biggie right? LOL I learned a few things..

First, with the 4link rear on these old cars, they made the driveline very long. And when you rack one the rear end hangs down, shoving the driveline all the way into the transmission. There's no extra room to pull it out after removing the U-joint straps. I ended up having to set the car down on jackstands to get the rear up so the driveline would come out. Asked the boss when he got back about that, he said " oh ya.. i remember doing that"

Then, I get the transmission out, and go to pull the torque convertor. Yank on it.. it slides about 1/2" and clunk.. stops. Try prying a little bit.. huh.. this thing wont come out. So I ask paul, who asks the old timer in his shop. Says I need to take the ring gear bolts out(its attached to the torque convertor). I'm like wtf? I end up calling our transmission guy. He says same thing. Take those out, then the torque convertor will come apart. Theres a snap ring inside. HUH????

So I remove those bolts, and the convertor splits in 2.. weird.. here's a snap ring, remove another part. Then 2 more snap rings, now i'm down to a planetary gear.. inside the convertor? Remove that, and yet another snap ring, and finally the back shell of hte convertor comes out. Ah theres the seal! But of course I have the wrong one LOL. New one 2 days away and a weekend in the middle..

Here's a pic of this thing partway apart.