I need to post some pics up of it all back together after the total defunking and cleanup. I also removed the stick-on 'wood-grain' from the trim and used some black satin krylon fusion on some of the trim after some wet sanding (some of the trim pieces were pretty scratched up). Pics to come for that. For now, here is what the past several days have been about.
Drained old nasty coolant (I have no idea what that stuff was, I guess part green and something else? ) I flushed it 4 times, it finally came out pretty clear.
Old radiator pulled
New OEM radiator ready to go in.
No photo but also installed B&M trans cooler (inline with radiator cooler) and an inline filter. Also a new 170 deg thermostat went in since I read it works better for SC'd trucks as well as new upper and lower radiator hoses.
Here she is about to go under surgery for the next phase, tranny removal to replace the rear main seal.
Transfer case out. My wife likes to capture these moments after listening to all my cussing and yelling (if you don't cuss and yell when doing this kind of job you are a better person than I!)
Tranny is out! Those top bolts were a nightmare, I was wailing on them with a pretty powerful impact gun and they would NOT budge, the last person to mess with the tranny was a damn gorilla. Finally got em loose with a breaker bar and a cobbled together 2 foot long extension.
Here I am taking the bolts from the valve body so I could shim the 1-2 and 2-3 accumulators for faster shifts and better tranny life. I cheaped out and didn't order a new valve body gasket thinking 'oh I'll be extra careful with it!'. Wrong, that thing is super thin and brittle as f#&% so if you do this just get a gasket and save yourself a headache. This was Sun, so naturally I couldn't even order a new one till today (Mon) and then it probably won't be in till tomorrow or the next day, so my tranny gets to sit in the garage for a while. Notice the template I made to keep track of which bolts go where, there are 2 different size bolts that go in various spots.
Luckily I had other things I could do while the tranny was out. I replaced the rear main seal, cleaned up the old oily dirt and grease from the rear of the engine so I can spot any leaks quickly (hopefully no leaks though!). I also replaced the gasket for the oil cooler and the union bolt, I recommend doing this if you ever pull the tranny since it is right there easy to get to. My gaskets were rock hard and I had to use a metal pick to get the old one out it was so baked in there. Also replaced the o-rings for the tranny and oil dipsticks. I'm cleaning up the drive shafts and will grease the zerk fittings with some nice royal purple grease.
That's it for now, tonight I plan to take off the SC and look for the damn vacuum leak I can't seem to locate. I'll probably replace all the rubber hoses I can and I have a new manifold gasket to replace the old when I put the SC back on.
I have the parts for the diff breather extension mod and will be doing that either tonight or tomorrow.
