On the Topic of Replacing the Selector Shaft Seal
seems like this is a pretty common problem, although the first time I had ever read about it was this weekend. There are some decent videos that use a special tool to remove the seal from above, and I found at least one write up of somebody who dropped the valve body and pushed the seal out from below, I did neither. Well, I wanted to use the tool, and I thought I found it at Napa for $8.99, but it ended up being the GM version which absolutely will not work.
Time to complete: less than an hour (not including time seal spent in the freezer prior to getting started)
tools needed:
* 12mm socket
* 7/16" socket
* various picks & flathead screwdrivers
* tiny bit of grease
* Transmission selector seal
Autozone had this as part #8609 but Napa had it as # 8017. I went with the Napa part, but the AZ one looked identical.
Step 0: put your new seal in the freezer.
Step 1: DONT drain the pan, don’t remove the front driveshaft, don’t disconnect the cooler lines.
Step 2: I already had my skid plate dropped for other repairs, but it’s absolutely possible to do this repair with the skid pate on. But it’s probably easier without it.
Step 3: remove the 2 bolts holding the cable brackets. The top bracket was 7/16” and the bottom bracket is 12mm. Because of course. It was really hard to get a good pic of this, but the pink arrow is the 7/16” and the blue is 12mm. They’re on opposite sides, but each bolt has a square but on the other end that holds it in place for you.
View attachment 266095
Step 4: slide both brackets off the selector switch. I had to do some gentle prying with a flathead screwdriver to get them to slide off. There was a lot of gunk up there, even after liberal use of brake kleen.
The picture isn’t great, but both brackets are on the shaft, and they only go back on one way. The top one can be flipped toward the rear & out of your way. Step 5 deals with the other one.
View attachment 266097
Step 5: also not completely necessary, but probably helpful was moving the shifter cable out of the way. On the rear of the bracket is a metal ring with expanding fingers on it to keep it in the bracket. Squeeze with pliers and it will pull through.
View attachment 266099
Step 6: remove the seal. This is where the tool would come in handy. But instead I started in with a pick and got some of the inner metal lip to pry up. I was as careful as I could be to not mar up the shaft. You should be even more careful.
Once I had it sufficiently f’d, I used a small flathead screwdriver and was able to get the entire seal out of the seat. It didn’t take long, but early in it seemed futile. Maybe this took 10 minutes? Probably not even.
Once you take the seal out, you start to get more ATF bleeding into the seal seat. I had a paper towel in there to absorb as much as possible before taking it out at the last second to put the new seal in. Maybe it doesn’t matter, IDK.
View attachment 266108
Step 7: put the new seal in. If you left it in the freezer long enough, it will help it go in easier. You’ll also need an appropriately sized socket as your driver. That fancy tool comes with one, but if you own a TJ and can’t improvise a seal driver....
Seal driver requirements:
* same outer diameter as the metal portion of the seal
* inner diameter big enough to slip over the shaft
* long enough that the upper tip of the shaft does not extend through the driver
* not so tall that you can’t bang on it from above.
for me, it was a 21mm 1/2” drive socket from Autozone. Had it been maybe 2mm shorter I would’ve had to use a deep drive and that would’ve been harder.
sorry, no pics of this part of the process, but it’s the easiest to figure out once you get to this point.
anyway, get your seal out of the freezer, grease the inner lip (I used some red grease, ATF will probably work too), slide the seal over the shaft (it will be snug), and slide your driver over the shaft & onto the seal. CAREFULLY and with great patience tap the driver as uniformly as possible to drive the seal into the seat nice and straight like. You’ll want it to be flush with the surrounding area, keep tapping until it is.
I used a 4 lb sledge and just lightly tapped it. Don’t worry, mine went in a little crooked, too. You can see it fully seated in the mirror
View attachment 266109
Step 8a: put it all back together. Pull the forward cable back through the retaining bracket till it seats. Then slide the selector cable bracket over the shaft. There is a flat spot on the back of the shaft that only allows it to go on one way.
Then feed the 12mm bolt back through and put the square bolt into the notch and tighten back up.
Step 8b: put the upper bracket back on. There are 2 pieces the tip of the shaft will feed through. The bottom part will fit through in any orientation. Then rotate the bracket so that the flat part of the upper shaft will fit through the upper part of the bracket. This took a little bit of patience, but once I finally had it in place it slid right on.
Put the 7/16” both through, square nut into the notch, and tighten down.
step 9: crack a celebratory Coors light, dry everything up, and wrap a paper towel around the area. Pray it doesn’t turn red.
There are other ways to do it, that was how I did it. This job ended up being much easier than I expected. The moral of the story is that if you have a leak that appears to be at the transmission pan, take your time and be 9000% certain it's not actually from this seal, especially if the problem arose after the car had sat for some time.
