Broken transmission to bell housing bolt

[sfcrawford]

Hello all,

I am having a little bit of difficulty and could use some help. I was in the process of installing a new downpipe. I thought while I had the exhaust out, I would a take the opportunity to change the tail shaft seal and bushing, driveshaft u-joints, etc.

All of this was going pretty well until I decided to just drop the transmission so I could change the bushing on the bench, do some cleaning, etc. The four 15mm bolts holding it to the bell housing were, what I would consider to be, unreasonably tight. Three of them came out, but the one down in the corner where the starter is located did not want to come out and I wound up breaking the head off. It broke off just under the head, so there is still some of it sticking out. However, I have serious doubts that I am just going to be able to stick some vice grips on and get it that way.

My current line of thinking is to just put the other three bolts back in and call it good. The broken bolt will still work like an indexing pin in the unlikely event that the transmission were to try to rotate.

Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Sammy

[kiwi]

Id get mine out...Blue torch.....PB...Easy out....

[RFranklin]

I agree with Kiwi. A little heat, some PB Blaster and should come right out. I would not run with only 3 bolts. Good luck.

[sfcrawford]

Thanks guys. I finally got it out. I used PB blaster and the acetone/ATF mix, and heat. I got it to rock back and forth in the car, but couldn't get it to turn all the way. I took the bell housing out and welded a flat washer onto the little bit of bolt sticking out with a 7014 rod and it held together well enough to use a pipe wrench to get it out. That was the only bolt in the entire bell housing that was difficult...

While this added about 4 days to my project, once I got the bell housing out, I noticed that I needed a new throwout bearing, and that I have a fairly bad valve cover gasket leak in the rear -- so this probably wasn't as unlucky as I thought.

IMG_20141228_131804.jpg
Sammy

[RFranklin]

Thanks guys. I finally got it out. I used PB blaster and the acetone/ATF mix, and heat. I got it to rock back and forth in the car, but couldn't get it to turn all the way. I took the bell housing out and welded a flat washer onto the little bit of bolt sticking out with a 7014 rod and it held together well enough to use a pipe wrench to get it out. That was the only bolt in the entire bell housing that was difficult...

While this added about 4 days to my project, once I got the bell housing out, I noticed that I needed a new throwout bearing, and that I have a fairly bad valve cover gasket leak in the rear -- so this probably wasn't as unlucky as I thought.

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Sammy

Excellent !! Great Job !! As painful as it was. It's sounds like it was worth it.

[svono50]

Nice work! Glad you got it out with some perseverance and patients.

[kiwi]

Patients?? Not unless he banged some people on the head from frustration and sent them to hospital.......

[sfcrawford]

Considered it briefly... but it worked out anyway.

I added an album for this project.

My car is very, very, clean and original and I have been meaning to work on the underbody of the car for a long time. I would like it to look as good as the inside, it's just one of those things that is worth doing mostly for yourself.

Sammy

[gbeaird]

Don't forget the anti-seize when putting that back together. Even though you don't ever expect to go back in there, you never know. Aluminum and steel next to one another can be problematic.

And get a couple of longer bolts, cut the heads off, and slot the ends. Use them as guide studs to help line things up when hoisting the trans into position. Install the bolts in the other two holes to hold things in place, and then replace those studs with the other two bolts.

[sfcrawford]

Thanks Gene, I would not have thought of that alignment trick.


Sammy

[SVOeric]

comes in handy when installing transmissions, you never know about the things, alignment tool or not, sometimes they slide right in, other times, they are a beast... Seems to be no middle-ground.

[Johnnym]

I found it is best to anti-seize everything. Works out so much later.

[gbeaird]

Since we don't live where we have to worry about salt, I don't use it that much, but definitely use it anytime we have two different metallurgies in contact with one another. So, steel/aluminum, steel/titanium, ti/al, stainless/non-stainless, etc, we use anti-seize on.

And yes, stabbing the trans is hit-or-miss, but using some headless bolts as alignment studs helps the process greatly. That way, you're not having to hold the thing up, AND try to wiggle it around enough to drop into place. The worst one I had to do was the T-56 in my wife's Z28.