Grab a coffee, and read my tale of woe...

[mardak at cogeco.ca (Mark)]

I'm sooooooooo f'in pissed!!!!!!!!!!!  After a completely hellish day
wrenching on the beater/tow bastard swapping the suspension from the 75
(too many snags and PITA things to mention), I decided to swap out the
fifth gear for the .71 I removed from my (now) junk older FF.

The PITA saga actually began last night, when I attempted to remove the
said .71 gear from my (now) junk tranny.  NONE of the procedures I read
on the swap mentioned that the tube thingy that you're supposed to
remove with a "special tool" is supposed to be threaded DOWN through the
"fork" instead of up.  Someone also replied to my post the other day
that I didn't need to make the "special tool", and to just use a pair of
circlip pliers.  I proceeded to butcher the threads up a bit while
threading the tube up, but I thought "ah what the hell, it's a junk
tranny and I don't need that part anyways, where's my vicegrips...".  So
after the tube refuses to go any higher and the threads are now
COMPLETELY messed up I realize that I'm going the opposite direction I'm
supposed to.  Ok, now what...  Out comes the trusty grinder.  I figure
I'll just grind off the threads and then use a hammer and punch to
slowly turn the tube down through the fork.  Well after about a half
hour of cursing that would make a drunken sailor uncomfortable I finally
got that damn tube free of the fork.  /Stuey voice/  "Victory is mine!"
I should have just "went to town" on the whole fork with the grinder,
but hey, I'm a glutton for punishment...  :)

It gets (much worse) though...  That was just a precursor to the
problems I would encounter today...

So today I set to work on swapping the freshly liberated .71 gear into
the 4K installed in the beater/tow bastard.  I dropped the driver side
of the engine/tranny by removing the front mount bolts, rear tranny
mount nuts, and the passenger side engine mount bolt.  After going as
low as it'll go I realize that the driver's side mount is in the way and
has to be removed in order to remove the 5th gear cover.  Here's where I
remembered that those two bolts holding the mount bracket to the tranny
were completely seized when I installed the tranny last summer.  I tried
for a while before saying "chuck it", and just snapped the bolt.  Only
one end came out, and the other wasn't going anywhere, cause there was
just no room to get anything in there to pound or lever it out.  So I
figure I'll just remove the other bolt and pivot the mount on the
trapped/seized bolt to get enough clearance.  To my surprise I was able
to remove the nut, but there wasn't enough room between the mount and
the inner fender well to actually remove the bolt.

At this point I'm ready to snap (especially after the maddening time I
had with the suspension) so I resorted to using my favorite destructive
tool - my 4 1/2" angle grinder, to hack a small chunk out of the inner
fender-well to get the bolt out.  Cool, it works.  Hmmmm, even with
pivoting the mount there's still not enough room.  Ok, well since I
already cut into the fender-well, what the hell, I'll just grind out a
piece big enough to allow the 5th gear cover with the mount attached to
clear everything.  (BTW, this car is a total POS (which you'll be able
to see for yourself at Cincy), so I had no problems justifying taking a
grinder to it...

Now with enough room for the cover to slide out, it should just slide
off, right?  WRONG.  Pry, pry, bang, bang, WTF!!!  It comes out about an
inch, and that's it.  I check all around it, and nothing appears to be
hanging it up, so out come the big prybars.  A couple back and forth
pries and it pops out!  "Victory is mine!" I actually said out loud as I
hastily pulled the freed cover from the tranny.  Well guess what also
came with the cover.  Yup, you guessed it, the rod that ABSOLUTELY,
POSITIVELY CANNOT come out, or a complete tranny disassembly is required
to put it back in.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!  So after
wheeling all the tools, wheels, and anything else within reach as far as
I could throw them, and entering a blind rage that I'm sure was quite
entertaining to anyone watching, I came to the realization that I'd have
to cancel my (already paid for) vacation long-weekend to Quebec I was
supposed to be leaving for in the morning.  If I waited until after the
weekend to swap a  tranny from my 80 S into the car I wouldn't have
enough time before heading out for my trip to Missouri next week to pick
up the 77.  So now I have a weekend of multiple tranny removals and
installs to look forward to, while paying for a vacation I'm not on...  

I suck...

Mark.
75
77
80 S
81
81 S  2.0 ABA/JH/f'ed up 4K











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