The converters should swap with no problems, although getting the converter to engage all the way can be a little bit of a pain in the ass. It is one of those things that you kind of have to have a knack for. It should lock in, if you will, three times, clunk clunk clunk. I have seen guys fight with them for thirty minutes before they lost their mind and went to lunch, came back from lunch and the darned thing nearly fell in. Everybody has their own way of doing it you will just have to monkey with it until it goes in. One thing that you can try is standing it up on the tail shaft and trying to drop it straight in, messy but effective for some people. Make sure you have a buddy to stabilize the trans while you monkey with it. The method that I have the best luck with involves a long threaded rod that I screw into one of the flexplate bolt holes in the face of the converter, I screw it in and then I have a handle by which I can spin the converter around to get it to the sweet spot where it will clunk clunk clunk in.

You may find it necessary to change out the out put flange for the drive shaft and make sure you have the right hardware for the o.d. solenoid harness. They run the same harness but it is routed slightly different from one to the other. Things to change out or inspect while there:

O.D. solenoid wire where it goes through the shift bucket into the car, they crack/rot out and cause the fuse for that circuit to blow and/or smoke relays.

Rear main seal, check and most likely change.

Input shaft seal, change out while you have the converter out. Don't even bother with checking this one just yank it out and stuff in a fresh factory seal.

Shifter bushings while you have the linkage loose, check and replace if nec.

Tighten the rear main seal housing while you have access to it.

On the trans itself you can go from mild to wild on resealing it while the box is out and on the ground. My advice is to change out what you cannot get to without pulling it back out. That would be the rear main, input shaft seal, and the front pump o rings. The rest of this stuff while easier to do with it out of the car can be done with it in the car easily enough.

The front pump O rings really are not that tough but they can be a little on the tricky side if you have not seen them done before. They entail pulling the bell housing off of the box itself and if you decide you really want to do them eith E-mail me or post here on the board and someone will walk you through it. The most obvious sign that you need them is the clean spot at the bottom of the bell housing right above the front of the top of the pan. It leaks right there and washes everything down with atf.


Mark