Transmission Pan Help

[Lee S.]

I'm doing a tranny pan drop and filter change on my 98X. Have my front wheels on drive up ramps. Have all the bolts removed from the tranny pan and all the ATF drained out. I am not able to manuver the tranny pan to completely remove it for cleaning etc.

Very cramped quarters to manuver. It either gets hung by the front drive shaft, the front driver's side catalytic converter or the transmission shift linkage any of which would be a real PITA to remove just to get the pan down. What a headache. I've played with it every which way and just can't seem to get completely out. I'm really hoping one of you have run into the same problem and can bail me out of this jam.

Any help or advice out there?

Lee

 

[Lee S.]

Okay, it did not seem possible to get the pan down without removing either the cat converter or the front drive shaft. Played with it for hours but couldn't get it down. Wound up moving it to the side as much as I could and sneaking in a new filter (I was just barely able to do this). Since the pan was basically right in my way I really couldn't get at the gasket surfaces to clean them. I did manage to wipe most of the bottom of the pan although I couldn't get it as clean as I would have liked if were totally removed. I also didn't find any magnets although a magnet could have been in the part of the pan bottom that I couldn't get to. Couldn't check the torque on the valve body bolts either.

Had to put it back together with the old pan gasket (had a new one that I was going to put on but didn't want to chance it without being able to clean the surfaces). Actually the old gasket was cork and looked to be in good shape and better quality than the replacement gasket.

Everything's back together now. I just hope I don't have problems reusing the old gasket.

There must be a procedure for dealing with this problem. I can't be the only one to run into it. Hopefully someone who has been thru it will chime in and let me know. Otherwise next time I'll let the dealer do it.

Lee

 

[Blee1099]

I don't know about the SOHC & the tranny pan on yours but on my 97 ohv, the pan should drop pretty easily.. You might have to pry it a little but other than that, it should drop easy.

 

[Lee S.]

Blee:

Thanks for replying.

Drop easy? No way. Yeah everyone in this forum talks about dropping the pan and servicing like it's a piece of cake as it should be... except I guess in my case.

I thought about prying it but I really didn't want to take the chance of damaging the pan.

Blee, how close is your driver's side cat converter to your tranny pan on the 97? Is this what you had to pry a little around? On mine I would have had to pry the pan around the cat converter. It was such a tight fit with apparently no give that I risked scraping the gasket surface of the pan right across a pointed edge on the cat to force (pry) it out. This is why I chose not to do it. I guess what I'm saying is that if everyone else has to pry a bit and they didn't wreck the pan then maybe next time I'll try prying.

Do you think I'm okay reusing the old pan gasket? My X only has 56K miles so I think the gasket is the original.

Lee

 

[Blee1099]

Originally posted by Lee S.
Blee:

Thanks for replying.

Drop easy? No way. Yeah everyone in this forum talks about dropping the pan and servicing like it's a piece of cake as it should be... except I guess in my case.

I thought about prying it but I really didn't want to take the chance of damaging the pan.

Blee, how close is your driver's side cat converter to your tranny pan on the 97? Is this what you had to pry a little around? On mine I would have had to pry the pan around the cat converter. It was such a tight fit with apparently no give that I risked scraping the gasket surface of the pan right across a pointed edge on the cat to force (pry) it out. This is why I chose not to do it. I guess what I'm saying is that if everyone else has to pry a bit and they didn't wreck the pan then maybe next time I'll try prying.

Do you think I'm okay reusing the old pan gasket? My X only has 56K miles so I think the gasket is the original.

Lee

No problem.. its been about 6 months since I did my tranny.. I'll look at it in the morning.. I do remember having to pry it a little cause the gasket wouldn't pull away from the tranny so easily.

 

[Lee S.]

I had the pan pulled away from the gasket with no problem.....I just couldn't manuver the pan around the cat (or front driveshaft) to get it down to the ground. Seems like you didn't run into the same obstacles that I did. Now I'm wondering whether there might have have been a replacement cat installed or something which is not stock. This could explain my difficulty although I doubt its the case. Just bought the X 7 months ago so I really don't know the repair history.

Lee

 

[Rodeo Joe]

Lee,

Same problem here. I gave up and had a shop do it, he told me he dropped the exhaust to do it. Tranny died about 5 months later. I just have them do it and not deal with it. On the other hand, the T-Bird is cake.

Joe

 

[Lee S.]

Thanks Joe:

That makes me feel better. Glad i'm not the only one.

Lee

 

[aldive]

Take a look at Robert's post in this thread....http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63357&highlight=transmission+pan

 

[Rodeo Joe]

Thanks Al, you are the man! When I'm ready for an oil change I'll check everything out and see what the shop loosened up to do the service I had done in December.

Joe

 

[Lee S.]

Thanks from me too Al. Wish I saw that thread yesterday before I put everything back together........I would have tried dropping the driveshaft at the transfer case like it said. Anyway mabe next time.

Lee

 

[Blee1099]

I never knew the SOHC was that much of a pain when dropping a tranny pan..

 

[aldive]

Originally posted by Blee1099
I never knew the SOHC was that much of a pain when dropping a tranny pan..

The 2wd is not.

 

[IAmTodd]

Originally posted by Blee1099
I never knew the SOHC was that much of a pain when dropping a tranny pan..

So us OHVers are lucky for once Hope ya get things worked out!!

 

[Lee S.]

Originally posted by Blee1099
I never knew the SOHC was that much of a pain when dropping a tranny pan..

Me neither until yesterday.

Lee

 

[Robert]

Originally posted by IAmTodd
So us OHVers are lucky for once Hope ya get things worked out!!

Well, I guess if by lucky you mean that you don't have the extra horsepower that the extra exhaust pipe that has to go under the transmision requires then I guess you are lucky

 

[jfsledge]

For your next tranny maint. you might look at this link:
Dead Link Removed
It provides a procedure to replace all the ATF without dropping the pan. Obviously, it doesn't allow you to change the filter, but from what I hear, most tranny filters collect very little.