i am taking an engine out but leaving the tranny in the car. what procedures do i take to unbolt the flywheel and torque converter. can i easily rotate the converter by hand to remove the bolts? any info would be appreciated.. thanks

 

it's a flex plate not fly wheel with an auto trans. you'd want to unbolt the trans and unbolt the TC from the flex plate. the engine is fairly easy to turn by hand with the plugs removed. there is a "special tool" called a fly wheel turner that'll work for you or you can use a socket on the crank bolt, but that's a little unhandy if you're under the car. you could also leave the TC attached to the engine, but if you do you're asking for a big mess before you're finished.

 

we'll i sure dont need another mess. thanks for the info.

 

yeah I don't recommend leaving torque converter left on flex plate. Besides mess would probably make removing engine a little more difficult. Unbolt bellhousing from block, unbolt torque converter from flex plate, flex plate you don't have to remove, and be sure to have some thing to put under front of trans to support it. Personally I would just remove the trans. I found that the easiest way to get to the 2 top bolts of trans was to drop the trans support and use a long extension. You may beable to get to them from the top eaiser if you remove the distributor but not to sure haven't try that approch. If you leave trans in I would recommend putting a strap or strip of duct tape across the front of bell housing to prevent converter from possably coming out for what ever reason.

 

well i'm in the process of putting my stuff in, and i don't know what your approach is going to be, but my experience going back together is that with the top portion of the engine removed (plenum and runners) and the accesories removed, i can stand inside the engine bay and lean over the engine and have real nice access to most of that hard to get to stuff. but that's me. i'm a pretty thin guy so easy for me to fit... but it's alot easier for me to get to the upper trans bolts that way, too. i don't know how much teardown you need to do, so don't know how much you want to do before you actually remove the engine, but there's my experience with it... as for the trans, just support it with a good jack - one you know doesn't bleed down - with a piece of wood under the pan.

KAM

 

thats really gonna help me a lot guys. thanks... i might be a little lost or get a little messy if it wasnt for you all..

 

Lift the harness up a bit, and you can get at the top two tranny bolts without any problems with a wrench.

The first couple of times I did it, I spent forever with huge assortment of extensions and u joints that took 25 min to put the socket on the bolt.

 

i always do it from under the car with about 2 feet of extensions and a 9/16 swivel socket ...never took more than 10 min to put all 6 bolts in


as for removal i usually have a buddy rotate the engine with a breaker bar and socket on the crank while im under the car so i can get to the torque converter bolts .....

when you get them all removed before you pull the engine take a peice of plywood preferable and cut it to be about the size of the transmission pan and put that on a floor jack and support the transmission with it( if you dont own a transmission jack)