Wife's Car

Hello to all at the Mustang source

I am trying to get the transmission out of my wife's car, 2001 4.6 5 speed. Some internet homework has given me the impression the tranny is a
TR-3650.

presently the transmission will not pull off of the back of the engine.

I have:
-removed the H pipe
-removed the driveshaft
-removed the starter including the INFAMOUS third starter bolt
-crossmember removed
-two top bellhousing bolts
-3 bellhousing bolts on the left (drivers side)
-2 bellhousing bolts on the right (passenger side)
-2 motor plate bolts facing rearward at the bottom of the transmission
-clutch cable removed

kinda perplexed, its stuck like chuck, I have gotten under there and wobbled and shaked and shook and keep looking for another bellhousing bolt? thinking it is something very stupid to make me want to ***** slap myself.....

so I keep looking and feeling around the bellhousing looking for something else holding this puppy on.........

I dunno....thinking dowel pins stuck in holes or input seized to pilot or throwout mangled and made a salad with the fingers.....but looking in there I can see no carnage.

car had been making noise for about a year, presumed it was the TO bearing, then the burning smell and smoking began followed by hideous racket.
so I'm trying to get this tranny out but just when I thought it would be on floor of my garage its hung up with my ATV jack underneath it.
if anybody can think of another bolt I am missing please do tell, thanks

worst case if it is really hung up inside I'll have to pull motor+tranny and pull em apart on the garage floor..........

JDF

Well based off this picture from google it looks like you got everything. I would say it's hung up on the dowel pins. Have you tried spraying some penetration oil on them to help loosen things up?

Wife's Car

thanks man

my next move is to put a big socket on the crank and make some turns on the crankshaft to see if that changes anything

the picture is very helpful

this is the first time I've worked on one of these cars and I pretty much want to earn the t-shirt.....and thats what I am in the process of doing

it has been pretty smooth so far, unplugging the front O2 sensors was fun and every single fastener from the factory has been at 600 ft/lbs, can't believe none of them broke coming off. Most of them I was hanging on my 1/2 pivot head breaker ratchet w/my eyes closed until POW! and after everthing went flying and the dust cleared, the fastener was loose. And I realize as I'm typing this....that....wow.....everybody else uses air tools.

I was really hoping it was the dowel pins now that I can somewhat stomach the idea of seven (seven....really?) bellhousing bolts

but now I'm looking at the pic wondering "uh....where are the dowel pins....does it even have any?"



its all good as long as I don't get pissed and start prying and break some aluminum
then it will be a bad day
so now, I'm trying to enjoy the curious fascinating thrill of this all.

JDF

Yeah when I did my clutch on my car it was a big pain in the *** getting it to budge on the dowel pins.

The dowel pins are the two holes that are second from the top. So there's one right above the starter and the matching one on the other side of the bell housing.

Wife's Car

Wife's Car

Wife's Car

thanks JDF

I'm gonna go back later and figure out how to put more than one pic in at a time....

how do you like that TOB?

I got the tranny out Sun night after going to a Mexican food buffet, I rotated the crankshaft and pryed and back and forth and she finally popped loose.
turns out the dowel pins are hollow and the bellhousing bolts go through them

meanwhile....anybody know how to get the clutch fork off? I keep pushing it inward towards the input shaft to get it to pop off of the pivot ball and no luck.

JDF

Wow there isn't ch of that thing left. On the clutch fork here should be two metal tabs holding the fork to the pivot ball. You should be able to pull the fork out of the inspection hole enough to get it off the ball of I remember right

Wife's Car

thought I would conclude this thread, finished the car about a week ago.

a few notes: that stupid wire loom/bracket that goes across the top of the bellhousing? throw it as far as you can. I must have stabbed the tranny about six times trying different ways to make that loom/bracket work. I would try to get a coat hanger and pull it up out of the way to stab the tranny and then pull it back down over the bellhousing. Not to be in my lifetime. Every single time it got hung up and I could not maneuver it into place. then there is NO room to get your hand(s) in going through the top behind the intake and I was NOT going to start disassembling intake/etc
My last idea was to unplug it and attach it to the bellhousing before stabbing but reality set in, there is no way that those plugs could be reconnected. just the front O2 sensors hanging down on each side are tough enough. Pay attention to the fact that you will need each front O2 sensor harness hanging down on each side. IF you stab the tranny and that stuff is tangled up and won't reach down far enough, you are history.

so I finally chunked it and proceeded, then a couple times after I stabbed the tranny the stupid motor plate ( a FORD thing ) would come off the dowels and get wopperjawed. so ZIP TIE the motor plate in place and then when you have the tranny stabbed and about 1/4" from being flush with the block, cut the zip ties off. trust me on this one.

oh yeah, I was going to leave the INFAMOUS THIRD STARTER BOLT out but went ahead and reinstalled it.
I coated the exhaust manifold studs with antiseize and found out that the four nuts on the rear of the H pipe are indeed different than the ones that fasten the front of the H pipe to the exhaust manifolds. They are VERY similar in size and I almost cross threaded one or two exhaust manifold studs. Not something you want to do. Fortunately I caught enough snap when that was happening.

then like I said earlier plugging in those front O2 sensors is a lot of fun. (sigh)

Filling the tranny was somewhat of a PITA but not too bad. I used three quarts of DEX/MERC that I had in the garage (undid the shifter boot and used a funnel with 3/8 fuel line coupled by a short length of heater hose.

As far as the TOB it did have to be slide hammered off but not too bad. I examined the TOB retainer tube doo dad and it was in good shape. put some grease on everything and put the new one on. It was like a national BC 16 something. I do have all that info in a folder at the house.

Question my sanity or lack thereof but No! I did not change the clutch or pilot or anything. I felt like it had plenty of miles left. when the time comes, I'll do it all including the rear main.

oh yeah I almost forgot to mention, buy the Harbor Freight $80 scissor tranny jack. Its a must have. It doesn't make the job easy, it just makes it possible. You pretty much have to pop a wheelie with it because the tilt is not much on that one. I took the strap off and zip tied the tranny to the sides of the jack surface (there are ears on the tranny with holes in them).
If you do not do this, you will have a rough time of the tremec wanting to constantly slide off. You could use the strap, but tell me, how will you lift the buckle up to undo the strap, in the top of the trans tunnel?

the nature of the attached bellhousing (ie bolts on the inside) on the tremec does make things a little more interesting. so it gets a little tough just getting the input shaft into the hole because the shifter is already banging on the top of the tunnel when you get close, so yeah its kind of a pain.

peace out