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It is back on the road, replaced the unit last weekend but broke the plastic down lever from the under side of the gear selector for the linkage. Had to wait a couple of days for that. $22.00 for that part. It runs great.
The replacement cost $200.00 plus 7 hours of driving in a snow storm last week. Found a place in Zeeland MI, that had over 25 units for my car alone. They claim it has 80,000 miles on it and it came with a 90 day warranty too.
Had located a couple of units in the Chicago area but they were asking 500-650 for them. One had over 180K on it.
Ran into a couple of snags on the removal of the old unit. Could not get the trans cooler line disconnected at the unit, did not want to use heat incase there was a fitting that needed to be salvaged. Cutting the lines near the radiator allowed enough clearance to get it out. The other was a little more difficult, the 6th and last bolt on the torque convertor stipped out, a few choice words filled the house on that. The only idea that would work to me, was to drill off the head, carefully to not ruin the flywheel. In order to get my drill in there the exhaust manifold and heat shield had to come off. A royal pain. Drilled off the head and replaced the torx bolts with hardened hex heads. The bolts had to have a thinner head height to clear the back side of the engine block. Took some running around on a Sunday but found a hardware store that still had the old style of displaying bolts. The kind with the little drawers. After clean the replacement unit of a ton of sand and oil mix, replaced the input shaft seal, pulled apart the PNP switch, cleaned and regreased, tested the other electric gear with an ohm guage against the original unit, every thing was about the same in resistance. Took me about 3 hours to put everything back. Top it off with dyno trans fluid. The first test was done wheels up on the stands, had the son get in start it up and I shifted the gears from underneath using the lever on the side of the tranny. Everything seemed good.
Have about 250 miles on it now and it seems very smooth. I imagine that the old unit was wearing but at such a small rate that it is hard to notice it. Except for the radiator trashing it suddenly, it may appear that its days were numbered anyway.
Just confirmed too, the radiator is bad, and not the fittings I thought it was, and as of yet the trans is still by-passed from it. Have to order a new radiator but will wait until next month. I figure then to make the switch back to synthetic fluid. As much as the thought bothers me, with the weather warming up, by-passing the radiator just makes me very uneasy.
Thanks all for your input.
DanR 94 964 277,000 miles (43,000 on the new engine)
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DanR
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