I'll be tackling this project this week, because I have some decent water crossing in my near future. Not gonna lie, I'm a little scared by this project. I've never pulled a transmission out before, and I don't know, it kinda seems like a big deal. And I've certainly never re-installed a torque converter before. I've watched a few videos, read the FSM, I think I have it more or less down, but I am definitely looking for anyone who has done this before, based on a couple of the hiccups some people have run into along the way.
Band Adjustment
the FSM says to tighten down the first band adjuster, and I found one youtube who didn't and apparently caused him a problem. Nobody else mentions this step, and messing with band adjustments seems like a way to turn a working transmission into a non-working transmission. The same could probably be said about this entire project.
Some sort of washer?
I read a note somewhere that if you're not careful there's a washer somewhere beneath/behind something that can "come loose" when you pull the pump and make it impossible to fit everything back together. Later years have washer with 3 teeth that keep it in place but I don't believe my 97 has that. This is another case of one person having trouble with nobody else so much as mentioning it, but I'm giving it the full cautionary weight for now.
Puking up ATF
On every discussion of this project, there is at least one person who says after they did this, they started puking up ATF through the new vent tube, without any real understanding of why. The recommendation is to put the new breather right above the first band to avoid slinging, but I have a hard time believing that 4' of tube is filling up because the rotational mass is slinging ATF into the 1/4" opening. I also don't understand enough about automatic transmissions to really know what the band is doing while things are running....does it spin sometimes/never/always?
Vent location
The OEM location is integrated with the pump. By moving it slightly back do we get the same venting characteristics? Does it even matter? I don't understand how the pump really works to understand how the vent functions w/o ATF pouring out... I've heard some people do closer to the tail housing but that seems more likely to cause the puking and is furthest from the original location. I've also heard that later transmissions used the dipstick tube to vent somehow....which begs the question why doesn't the 32RH dipstick tube function as a vent?
Band Adjustment
the FSM says to tighten down the first band adjuster, and I found one youtube who didn't and apparently caused him a problem. Nobody else mentions this step, and messing with band adjustments seems like a way to turn a working transmission into a non-working transmission. The same could probably be said about this entire project.
Some sort of washer?
I read a note somewhere that if you're not careful there's a washer somewhere beneath/behind something that can "come loose" when you pull the pump and make it impossible to fit everything back together. Later years have washer with 3 teeth that keep it in place but I don't believe my 97 has that. This is another case of one person having trouble with nobody else so much as mentioning it, but I'm giving it the full cautionary weight for now.
Puking up ATF
On every discussion of this project, there is at least one person who says after they did this, they started puking up ATF through the new vent tube, without any real understanding of why. The recommendation is to put the new breather right above the first band to avoid slinging, but I have a hard time believing that 4' of tube is filling up because the rotational mass is slinging ATF into the 1/4" opening. I also don't understand enough about automatic transmissions to really know what the band is doing while things are running....does it spin sometimes/never/always?
Vent location
The OEM location is integrated with the pump. By moving it slightly back do we get the same venting characteristics? Does it even matter? I don't understand how the pump really works to understand how the vent functions w/o ATF pouring out... I've heard some people do closer to the tail housing but that seems more likely to cause the puking and is furthest from the original location. I've also heard that later transmissions used the dipstick tube to vent somehow....which begs the question why doesn't the 32RH dipstick tube function as a vent?