As the subject says, I attempted to remove the transmission pan today on an 87 GTA but the crossmember is blocking two of the bolts. I'm not even sure how this is possible! I can't see that the crossmember was installed in reverse or anything.

Is it safe to remove the crossmember to drain the transmission oil or will this put too much pressure on it? Do I need to support it with another jack?

 

Yup, have to move things to get to things sometimes.

 

Thanks!

 

Why "another jack"?

It's totally OK to use the same one to hold up the trans tail housing while you take out the crossmember, now that the car is securely supported on jack stands so you DON'T KILL YOURSELF. It's OK, hopefully it has many more jackings left in it, using one of them up on that won't permanently invalidate it.

 

Ideally the Tail-Shaft Housing should be supported by a Jack-Stand any time the Transmission Cross-member is not supporting the Drive-Train.

Otherwise excessive stress will be placed upon the the two Engine-Mounts.

 

Not sure I follow. I:

- Drove front wheels up on ramps
- Put chocks behind rear wheels
- Used a floor jack to jack up the front a bit more
- Put two jack stands underneath front arms for safety

I'm a noob, I didn't know that there were any additional jack points on a third gen other than between the two front or two rear wheels.

 

There are other jacking points, but that's not really an issue now.

As long as the car is supported properly, you can use your floor jack under the transmission extension housing (the aluminum piece the drive shaft plugs into), to hold that up; and pop the crossmember out. Raise the trans a half inch or so, just a little bit, to take the tension off of everything and just take out the bolts.

Might be a good idea to replace the trans mount while you're there. They break all the time, and you're like 95% of the way there with it in this state.

 

I found that the appropriate socket, in this case a 1/4" drive, was small enough to "slide " between the crossmember and the pan and get into position over the offending bolts. A 3" extension allowed access with a ratchet.
Didn't seem like a big deal to me.
Other than getting the car up in the air, by whatever method works for you safely, no other jacking or removal of anything was necessary.

 

My only reason for suggesting a Jack-Stand over the Hydraulic-Jack; is because doing so forms a bad-habit of trusting a Hydraulic-Cylinder.

This does not happen often... but the Hydraulic-Jack can bleed-down and trap an arm between the Transmission and Jack...
or drop down enough that you move and hit your head on the jack; not realizing that the jack is not in the same place that it was.

 

Thanks for the added advice.

I was unable to get a socket into the gap even after shifting the crossmember - I had to let it swing to the side. Next time I will try a 1/4 drive instead of 3/8. Sadly when tightening the bolts with a torque wrench to the recommended 26 ft lbs, one of them in the corner just started spinning and some metal came out. A project for another day. Ended up tightening the rest to 20 ft lbs.

And yeah, I consider a hydraulic jack a tool to raise the car only but not hold it.

 

Another kind of tool that may be helpful, is one of those ratcheting box-end wrenches like you can get at Home Depot or wherever. Pretty cheeeeep and useful for other things as well.

26 ft-lbs sounds like WAY too much. Something more around the 12-16 kind of range would make more sense. It's just sheet metal.

For the one that stripped, repair it with a Heli-Coil. That happens all the time to those. Size is 8mm "standard" thread, 1.25mm I think but don't take my word on the exact number. Quick eeeeeezy and effective repair, only takes acoupla minutes, and leaves it much stronger than it originally was. Might want to consider doing it to all of em, especially any that you put all that torque onto. You may well find yourself back in there changing it again for leaks, and straightening the pan back out, so that it doesn't distort and leak this time.

 

You've overtightened it and stripped it out. The correct torque spec for trans pan bolts is 12 ft. lbs.

 

Yeah, the issue is that as a noob I am trying to do things correctly, but my mistake was googling it on my phone and relying on the first link I saw which said 26 ft lbs for the 700R4 pan.

I did have the sense of mind to stop tightening all other bolts that much when I felt it was by far enough. Unfortunately I wasn't able to feel how hard they were tightened to begin with because I doubt the pan has ever been dropped before.

FWIW the Haynes manual is very good but it just said "tighten to torque specs" but didn't actually say what torque.

 

As mentioned above, it's repairable, either with a heli-coil, or possibly drilling/re-tapping for the next-larger standard-size bolt.

I strongly advise you to find a Helms Factory Shop Manual for your car; they turn up on ebay all the time. Aftermarket repair manuals are not generally recommended for 3rd gens (or any other vehicle, for that matter); they often state incorrect information or else no information at all on the specific topic one is trying to reference.