Rebuilding my 32RH transmission (fully successfully)

Kill me.

I dropped the clip that secures the lockup solenoid plug down into somewhere behind the low/reverse drum. I can't get it to slide back out and I can't reach a magnet in there. I have to disassemble everything. I did not see this coming.
 
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Don't cry for me, Argentina. I got it re-disassembled in under 12 minutes, film at 11. Found the clip, got it re-assembled in under an hour. I think I may have had a fitment problem because that lateral input shaft play is gone now. With the front band tight, the thing is rock solid. Gonna mount the pan and then stand it back on it's end, loosen the band and see if stuff still moves freely. Life got in the way, otherwise I would be putting it back in the jeep right now. Tomorrow, I guess.

Pro Tip: Connect the torque converter lockup & insert the clip before you bolt down the valve body. Also, don't try to square up the clip and push it straight on if the valve body is already in place (e.g. you're working on it while it's in the jeep). Instead put one leg of the clip in the the channel at about a 45 deg angle and push at a roughly 30 deg angle to get the far leg over the back corner of the clip. That will make way more sense when you try it.
 
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hear said:
Don't cry for me, Argentina. I got it re-disassembled in under 12 minutes, film at 11. Found the clip, got it re-assembled in under an hour. I think I may have had a fitment problem because that lateral input shaft play is gone now. With the front band tight, the thing is rock solid. Gonna mount the pan and then stand it back on it's end, loosen the band and see if stuff still moves freely. Life got in the way, otherwise I would be putting it back in the jeep right now. Tomorrow, I guess.

Pro Tip: Connect the torque converter lockup & insert the clip before you bolt down the valve body.
Click to expand...

You were supposed to have been immortal…


Glad you got it sorted.
 
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Got it all back in the jeep tonight. Went to start it, battery dead. Because of course.

And that mother flipping dipstick is leaking. I hate it so much.

Oh and after not spilling really any fluid during the tear down & rebuild….the trans was standing on its end with the pan on. Last thing to do is put the pump back in. But wait, I have a bowl of ATF I used to soak the clutches etc, I’ll pour that in before I put the pump in!

Yeah, there’s nothing stopping fluid from running out the cooler line openings, so I lost a lot of what I poured in. Today was all around awesome.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you about how I found out one of the torque specs in the ATSG is wrong. (Hint: it was the hard way).
 
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hear said:
Got it all back in the jeep tonight. Went to start it, battery dead. Because of course.

And that mother flipping dipstick is leaking. I hate it so much.

Oh and after not spilling really any fluid during the tear down & rebuild….the trans was standing on its end with the pan on. Last thing to do is put the pump back in. But wait, I have a bowl of ATF I used to soak the clutches etc, I’ll pour that in before I put the pump in!

Yeah, there’s nothing stopping fluid from running out the cooler line openings, so I lost a lot of what I poured in. Today was all around awesome.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you about how I found out one of the torque specs in the ATSG is wrong. (Hint: it was the hard way).
Click to expand...

Man, sorry you have to learn the hard way, but the rest of the community will benefit.
 
hear said:
Got it all back in the jeep tonight. Went to start it, battery dead. Because of course.

And that mother flipping dipstick is leaking. I hate it so much.

Oh and after not spilling really any fluid during the tear down & rebuild….the trans was standing on its end with the pan on. Last thing to do is put the pump back in. But wait, I have a bowl of ATF I used to soak the clutches etc, I’ll pour that in before I put the pump in!

Yeah, there’s nothing stopping fluid from running out the cooler line openings, so I lost a lot of what I poured in. Today was all around awesome.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you about how I found out one of the torque specs in the ATSG is wrong. (Hint: it was the hard way).
Click to expand...

Yeah, when things start going like that I put down the wrenches, walk away and grab a beer. If I don't, I might start chucking things and create more things for me to fix :)

It'll come together today, I have no doubt!
 
Went to bed with it leaking at the dipstick (and no other places afaik). The dipstick is a continued source of frustration, as I detailed earlier in this thread. It never used to leak, then I dropped the transmission a year ago and it's never been the same since. I ended up using some Right Stuff RTV last time, and I did the same this time (with the added bonus of having bent the bracket to the point where it's once again mounted to the bell housing). I guess I didn't do it good enough...

I woke up to a sizable puddle under the jeep. I can only pray that all that is from the dipstick. After having the thing apart, I'm amazed at all the different places it could potentially leak from that I was previously unaware of. Looks like I'll be draining the pan & doing a better job with the gasket maker goo.

And I had two morning meetings get canceled so I guess I have time to take my battery to Autozone and get charged.
 
wrong torque.jpg


Clearly the torque spec on the pump bolts is 175 ft-lbs. And we know it's foot-pounds because it doesn't have star after the value, as you see so noted in the pan bolt spec, overrun clutch set screw, speedo clamp, valve body, etc. I thought it felt like a lot of clamping force in the moment, and I don't remember it needing--SNAP. Broke off the head of one of the pump bolts.

Wait a second...175 ft-lbs is not 20 N-m. It's closer to 240 N-m. I wonder, did they forget to put the * to indicate inch-pounds?

1656423587969.png


Yes. Yes they very much did forget to put the star to specify inch-pounds.


I'm too pissed off about this one to even really talk about it, but its done and resolved and I'll leave it at that.
 
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hear said:
View attachment 339657

Clearly the torque spec on the pump bolts is 175 ft-lbs. And we know it's foot-pounds because it doesn't have star after the value, as you see so noted in the pan bolt spec, overrun clutch set screw, speedo clamp, valve body, etc. I thought it felt like a lot of clamping force in the moment, and I don't remember it needing--SNAP. Broke off the head of one of the pump bolts.

Wait a second...175 ft-lbs is not 20 N-m. It's closer to 240 N-m. I wonder, did they forget to put the * to indicate inch-pounds?

View attachment 339660

Yes. Yes they very much did forget to put the star to specify inch-pounds.


I'm too pissed off about this one to even really talk about it, but its done and resolved and I'll leave it at that.
Click to expand...

Follow the book they say, broken bolt you find.
I had a good laugh when the valve body diagram showed one of the valves going in backwards. Broken case bolts aren't so laughable. Glad you got that worked out.
With the dipstick just slather some ultra grey sealant around the where the o-ring goes and jam that sucker in there. And dont be shy with the sealant. Let it dry for about an hour and fire her up!
 
U8MYDZT said:
Follow the book they say, broken bolt you find.
I had a good laugh when the valve body diagram showed one of the valves going in backwards. Broken case bolts aren't so laughable. Glad you got that worked out.
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Yeah, I looked at the ATSG book, the FSM, and then the picture you shared with me to make sure I had it going in the right way. Then I had a freakout moment and I had to re-watch the assembly video I made to see how I inserted the valve. I think I did it right.

U8MYDZT said:
With the dipstick just slather some ultra grey sealant around the where the o-ring goes and jam that sucker in there. And dont be shy with the sealant. Let it dry for about an hour and fire her up!
Click to expand...
I probably didn't put enough goo on there, and I probably didn't wait long enough before filling it up.
 
xXDavidCXx said:
Pretty much true for every transmission job I've done!
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No joke. It took us about 4 hours to get all mounted back up. I don't know why it took that long, but it sure did. It wasn't even like we were fighting it, really. It's an arduous process and we're not exactly fast.

Other fun from the re-install process. Got the new torque converter on no problem (pre-filled it with about a quart). But a strange thing happened when we went to bolt it to the flexplate. We got the first bolt in fairly tight and suddenly I was unable to to rotate the engine using a 3/4" wrench on the crank pulley. We took the bolt back out and I was able to turn the engine again. We tried it again but could not get it to repeat the problem. Spun the motor at least 4 more times once the bolts were tightened and had no issue. It was very odd.
 
hear said:
No joke. It took us about 4 hours to get all mounted back up. I don't know why it took that long, but it sure did. It wasn't even like we were fighting it, really. It's an arduous process and we're not exactly fast.

Other fun from the re-install process. Got the new torque converter on no problem (pre-filled it with about a quart). But a strange thing happened when we went to bolt it to the flexplate. We got the first bolt in fairly tight and suddenly I was unable to to rotate the engine using a 3/4" wrench on the crank pulley. We took the bolt back out and I was able to turn the engine again. We tried it again but could not get it to repeat the problem. Spun the motor at least 4 more times once the bolts were tightened and had no issue. It was very odd.
Click to expand...

Was there a loud POP when the TC seated? I fought my TC to get the nose to slide into the crankshaft. I was warping the flex plate trying to seat the TC with just 1 bolt. (Guessing this is causes the flexplate to interfere with something keeping the engine from turing) At first I thought for sure the TC nose was the wrong size and I was goung to have to pull the trans back out. I ended up getting 2 of the bolts partially in and tightened them alternating back and forth until the TC lined up right and seated. Then took the bolts out 1 at a time, applied thread locker and torqued to spec.

So the real question is.... How's she drive?!?!?
 
U8MYDZT said:
Was there a loud POP when the TC seated? I fought my TC to get the nose to slide into the crankshaft. I was warping the flex plate trying to seat the TC with just 1 bolt. (Guessing this is causes the flexplate to interfere with something keeping the engine from turing) At first I thought for sure the TC nose was the wrong size and I was goung to have to pull the trans back out. I ended up getting 2 of the bolts partially in and tightened them alternating back and forth until the TC lined up right and seated. Then took the bolts out 1 at a time, applied thread locker and torqued to spec.

So the real question is.... How's she drive?!?!?
Click to expand...

Nothing like what you describe. I got the TC on no problem, felt all three clicks as it slid into position, and no issue getting the TC pilot bump into the flex plate. This was just weird, but I’m guessing my wrench was bound up or something. IDK.


No test drive yet, sill have to solve my leak & deal with the battery. I also don’t have the driveshafts or skid in yet….I’ve messed with transmissions enough to know that you don’t complete the job till you’re reasonably sure you’re not leaking (badly).
 
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Good news and bad news. The good news is that the major leak I found under the jeep is about 98% due to the dipstick not sealing well, which is a relatively easy fix.

The other 2% is the bad news. There’s a drip coming from the bell housing. I’m gonna tell myself it’s some spillage from when I installed the new TC and it shouldn’t be much more.

But it could be that my over torquing smashed the gasket & now it won’t seal? I guess I could have a pump seal problem, or it could be leaking from the bolt hole that holds the kickdown pivot rod. I reinstalled that with Teflon tape per a recommendation I read, but maybe that was wrong? There wasn’t really a puddle under the bell hosing so maybe it really is minor.

I’m gonna ignore it for now and see if any other issues arise. If the drip continues I’ll have to re-pull the trans and solve for that.

Meanwhile I’ve drained the trans, gonna rtv the EFF out of the dipstick tube and then wait an hour for it to cure. Probably push this thing out of the garage so I can clean up the bloodshed.

819C784A-568C-436B-8975-EB4C54389706.jpeg
 
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I put in 8 quarts last night, including 1 in the torque converter. I drained just over 5 back out, leaving me 2 unaccounted for (assuming the stuff in the TC didn’t leak out). There was a lot on the ground but I don’t think it was 2 quarts…so maybe 1 is in the back of the pan (it’s currently tilted away from the drain plug and it’s a deep pan) and elsewhere in the trans.

I’m starting to think the leak in the pump area is for real, but I’m still planning on riding that out. It took so much work to put it back in, and I just have to know if the trans is actually gonna work after all this.

Im already resigned to the fact that I’m gonna have to pull it out again, but it’s gonna have to wait. Pulling the pump & all that implies will be easy, I just dread the work it takes to drop it & reinstall after.
 
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