Some notes/comments on the rear main seal replacement: (sorry for the length and lack of pictures)
I went with the more pricey NAPA seal, the one made of Flouromaster. We'll see how that one works out for me. For pulling the transmission, I ended up disconnecting the winch PTO propeller shaft and forward axle propeller shaft (at the transfer case), and just let them dangle. I completely removed the stub propeller shaft between the transmission and transfer case, because I couldn't get it to the side far enough to be out of the way. Plus, I couldn't get the shaft separated, which was the other option to get the u-joint out of the way of the transmission.
As for supporting the transmission, I used DaveP's Tractor Supply 2 ton engine hoist. We couldn't get directly over the transmission at first, so we pulled the step off the passenger side. That gave us an extra 6 inches, which allowed us to boom up almost to the cab roof before we hooked into the transmission. At first I connected the handy little engine leveling doodad, but the handle for that was going to get caught on the way down. So, we hooked two ratchet straps around the back and middle of the transmission, and ran the fwd chains directly from the tranny to the hook on the hoist, and removed the rear chains entirely.
We put the transmission in first to pull the sprag linkage piece as far forward as possible, undid the bolts, and wiggled and shimmied the transmission to the deck. I put the little wood block under the pressure plate fingers, but we didn't have hardwood, so they were less than optimally effective. I used ratchet to loosen the bolts holding the pressure plate to the flywheel, doing about a quarter turn per bolt, all the way around until they were all loose. Pulled the pressure plate and found all kinds of goodies (metal chunks) stuck to the inside of the flywheel's gunk. They were residue from when the first transmission in the truck destroyed itself before I got it.
Used my Earthquake impact to pull the 6 flywheel bolts. I didn't have the stud yet, so I just manhandled the flywheel out and onto the deck. After doing about 30 minutes of head scratching, used a drill to start a hole in the seal, then threaded in a wood screw. Hooked the wood screw to the slide hammer, and out the seal popped. Set the new seal up against the crankshaft, and carefully applied Break-away to ease the seal on. Got the seal around the shaft, but had a heck of a time getting it to start setting into the housing. We ended up using the old seal and a metal plate to press the seal in.
Then we noticed that the pilot bushing was all worn and beat to heck (either the cause of or result of the previous transmission's "adventure.") Tried the old "Indian trick" of filling the hole with grease and then hammering a narrow rod to push the bushing out - no luck. Then DaveP got the slide hammer back out, and it had an attachment that worked perfectly. Went to NAPA, Spies, local marine shops, and they had nothing in stock. Stopped at a little local auto/machine shop, and they had it in stock. SCORE!
Picked up a threaded rod from NAPA and wrapped it in a layer of duck tape, and it worked like a charm for the flywheel. Cleaned up and slid the flywheel on, and followed the TM for the rest of that step. We used the hot knife to cut the input shaft off of my old transmission - MAN that took a long time to cool. Anyways - voila! Instant clutch alignment tool/bushing installer. Pushed it in and installed the pressure plate, slowly tightening the bolts around and around. Gasket on the adapter plate was a little tired, to put some RTV where it needed it, and installed the adapter plate. Threw a spot of grease in the pilot bushing, and then started booming up on the engine hoist.
It took the fiancee motivating the transmission with her feet from above, and me from below to get the input shaft lined up right. Then with her keeping steady pressure, I put the transmission in gear and wiggled the output shaft to get the splines on the clutch/input shaft to line up. Put the top two bolts in, then re configured the lifting gear to include the engine leveler. This allowed us to finish wiggling the transmission into place. Torqued everything, and then re-connected all the drive shafts, linkages and such.
Hard parts involved getting the input shaft clear of the pressure plate, and getting the input shaft into the pilot bushing.
Hope that was enough of a gas-bag explanation. I will try to get pics of some stuff, but most of it we were too busy to stop and take a picture.
Matt
<-- I guess that will do
