So I got to spend some time today under my car. I can sum it up in one word: Fuck.

While driving to the Shootout last year I started having some issues with the clutch. I thought that maybe it had some air in the line and didn't think too much about it on the ride there. I had just replaced the slave cylinder after it broke off the transmission. A bolt was missing or had vibrated out and the remaining ear could not deal with the stress of shifting and broke off. This happened less than a week before the Shootout. Jeff wanted to drive a DSM while he was up and I let him drive my car. He also thought there was something not right with how it felt. I drove home and pretty much forgot about the issue. I've done 22 miles since I got home in August. I don't have a place to work on the car at my apartment and I did not want to pull another transmission in dirt/gravel.

I finally got enough junk off of my grandmother's carport so I can deal with the car. I pull in, put it up on jack stands and bleed the clutch again. While bleeding the clutch I notice that the transmission and engine are moving. This is not good. I pull the cross member off and start looking around, but do not see anything. The movement is much more noticeable with the cross member off the car. Today I drop the down pipe and pull the transfer case. I see a bolt above the transfer case that is loose (Q). I cannot get it to tighten and fear that it is stripped. I manage to pull this bolt out with a screwdriver and see that it is broken. Fuck.



I move to the top of the transmission and start looking for other bolts. The two bolts on the front of the case are tight (V and U). I'm missing a bolt on the top of the transmission (U). I see the other bolt on the top (Y) has backed out. I try to find a suitable bolt for the top to replace the missing one and realize that this bolt has sheared off inside the block. FUCK.

I'm aggravated and decide that I am just going to pull the transmission and deal with these broken bolts. Three bolts are not going to be enough to hold this thing together. I get everything disconnected off the top of the transmission and move to the bottom to pull the half shafts and slave cylinder. Oh, what's this? A crack in the case half? Are you kidding me?! FUCK.







Transmission is out. I need to figure out what to do. Sorry for the wall of text, but I'm aggravated.

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Yuk. I've seen them with 3 transfer bolts stripped so its not that unusual, lol (especially for Q to be stripped).

Of course, you know how the crack happened and you know what needs to be done. But which way is the question.

If it was our trannies, no big deal. Just flip out bellhousings. No easy flipping here because they start undoing from the nose.

I'm thinking your best bet is to just weld up the crack. But be sure that you drill out the end of the crack first, so the it doesn't continue.

But I suspect you already know that and are just venting right now

Captain Caveman

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Pretty much just venting. I'm pretty sure it cracked to the window. I will be working on getting it cleaned up this week to have someone attempt to weld it up. I'm probably going to call a few bass boat shops and see who they use for aluminum repair and go from there.

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