Advice please on Transmission Removal 411

[Claude]

What is the easiest way to remove a 727 transmission from a 411 (s1) without removing the engine? On the other forum, someone suggested removing the seats and the transmission cover from the interior, to gain access, but to then drop the transmission down (carefully I am told so things don't break) and extract from below.

If someone has done a removal before, can they provide me with a step by step detail instruction. This would include breaking it apart from the engine as well. It seems there are some flywheel bolts that must be undone.

Claude

[Kevin H]

Claude,

This is clearly a question for "people who know stuff", whom I believe can be found over in the new BODA club

I have never done this job, so I can't provide a blow by blow description and I don't know for sure whether you need to remove the tranny tunnel and seats.

It's unfortunate that you didn't post your question yesterday when I had my 411 on axle stands - I could have had a look. That said, when I bought my 411 I had the tranny reconditioned and I know they didn't touch the tranny tunnel or the seats to get it out.

As for the flywheel bolts that you refer to, these are probably the four bolts which fix the torque converter to the flexplate, which in turn is connected to the end of the crankshaft (there isn't a flywheel per se, just a starter ring on the torque converter). However, if you leave the flexplate bolts in place the transmission spline should just slide out of the torque converter (with some very gentle wiggling), which would leave the torque converter connected to the engine.

If you do end up disconnecting the flex plate from the torque converter, make sure you mark one ear of the flexplate, along with the torque converter body so it's easy to reassemble the same way it came off.

The usual caveats and disclaimers apply

Please let us know how you get on.

[Thor]

I am also not able to give you a blow-by-blow account, Caude, but I have a few pointers. The only time we had the trnasmision out of my 409, it came out with the engine and went back in with the engine. If it is possible to get it out without removing the engine, the difficulty will be having enough space to move it first backwards a little to get it free of the engine and then downwards and forwards to come out. My recollection is that the back of the gear box is supported above a tubular cross memeber which is a permanent welded part of the chassis. On a Land Rover the equivalent part is bolted in and can be removed, greatly facilitating transmission removal.

The first question to answer would be to check whether it is possible to access all the bellhousing bolts and remove them from the car with the transmission still in place. If that is possible, then the rest of this post might make sense. If that is possible, it is necessary to choose 2 bolts which are roughly on oppositie sides of the engine which can be left in place until last but that are then most easy to get at to undo before final removal.

I would think the whole job is easiest if the transmission is in Neutral, not Park, when you start.

The preliminary steps are then as follows :
1) Drain the fluid from the transmision.
2) Disconnect any fluid cooler pipes and strap them out of the way, and cap the ends to keep the insides clean.
3) Disconnect the control cables/linkages, parking brake, gear lever, and kick-down.
4) Disconnect and completely remove the propshaft.
5) Disconnect the speedo drive cable, and any electrical plugs, etc.
6) Remove the front part of the exhaust, detatch it from the exhaust manifolds and from the front of the silencers and remove. This allows the angle of the engine to be tilted a little if necessary.
7) Have a look around the engine to see if there is anything else which should be removed or suitably adjusted to allow the engine to tilt a little forward or backward. Do what is necessary.
8) There should be two brackets which each form a triangle with the bottom of the engine and the bellhousing, one on each side, to improve the stiffness of the engine and transmission assembly. The upper end of each bracket is bolted to the bottom of the engine next to the sump, about half way along the engine, and the lower end is bolted to the bellhousing. Remove both of these brackets.
9) Remove the half-moon shaped peice of metal covering the front of the bellhousing below the engine, its 4 or 6 small bolts, I think.
10) You can now see the torque converter drive plate and the front of the torque converter. At least one of the bolts which hold the converter to the drive plate should be visible. Undo that bolt and then turn the engine round until the next one appears, remove that and reapeat until all four are out.

Do not try to do this by leaving the torque converter bolted onto the engine. It can slide out of the front of the gearbox, but you are in danger of braking the transmission oil pump drive system, which depends on two tabs on the hollow shaft at the back of the torque converter. The torque converter should be kept firmly in the front of the transmission at all times.

When all the bolts are removed, push the torque converter backwards a little in the bell-housing. It should move backwards, off the drive plate, by about 3 mm.

11) Assuming you are working on some sort of vehicle lift ramp, you now need to support the back of the engine sump on some sort of jack on the ramp. Don't lift it up but have something ready to support the back of the engine when the transmission is no longer attached.

12) Undo the bolts of the gearbox rear mounting.

13) Remove all but 2 of the bellhousing bolts.

14) Then you need to know whether this whole job is possible !
If it is, you should be able to undo the last two bolts, lift the transmission backwards a few inches, make sure the torque converter cannot fall out, lower the front of the transmission, possibly raising the back of the engine a few inches, and slide the transmission out forwards and downwards.

Voila ! Piece of cake !

(Refitting is the reverse of the above ! )

Thor.

[Kevin H]

Claude,
Thor's "drive plate" is what I referred to as the "flex plate".

Just one more bit of advice, and this maybe stating the obvious, but the transmission is very heavy (God only knows what the previous iron cased tranny must weigh!). I just happen to have a 727 Torque Converter in my garage, and it weighs a fair bit on it's own. With a whole transmission attached it is defintely a two man job to remove it safely.

Are you sure it wouldn't be easier to just remove the engine and transmission as one? (although that's what I did and ended up rebuilding the engine "while it was out", then the front suspension etc etc)

Good luck with it!

Kevin

[technicaltom]

Hi yet again I have no actual experience of removing an automatic transmission from the Bristol model you mention,But having removed And re fitted hundreds of transmissions ,It is always best to unbolt the Torque converter from the flexiplate, and remove the transmission with the converter in side , i usually bolt on a home made short flatsteel plate to keep the converter inside the bellhousing, (this also keeps the oil from leaking everywhere) when i'm removing the Gearbox/transmission,You dont want the torque converter falling on your" toes" if you are doing the job on a car lift ramp.

Usually i access the awkward bolts on the bellhousing and the starter motor with various 1/2 drive socket s +Extension bars, for really hard to get at bolts i use 3/8" drive sockets+ rachet and long extension bars combined with some choice swear words .

For the tail end of the gearbox i have a variety plastic aerosol caps that push in to keep oil from leaking everywhere sometimes i use a rag and a few cable ties to do the same job.

[Claude]

I can't believe it has been 8 years since I began this thread. A couple of weeks ago, someone In Auckland enquired about purchasing the 411, so - as it is the Christmas holiday and all of NZ is closed for summer - I pulled it out of deep storage and began to clean it up. Now that prospective buyer says he won't be able to look at the car until after returning from overseas travel, but my momentum in preparing it to be seen is prompting me to getting it on the road.

The old transmission is still in the car, but given that the market for 411's has risen, I began to look at what needs to be done to get the car on the road and then sold... either here in NZ or sent to England on consignment.

There is no 411 shop manual, but the 407-408 shop manual reads as follows. Has anyone actually followed this procedure? Comments and advice please.

Thanks,
Claude

Removing Transmission - This must be carried out from inside the car.

• Drain the cooling system.
• Drain the transmission by detaching the transmission dipstick/filter tube.
• Remove the carpets, seats, tunnel and floorboards.
• Remove the handbrake lever and ratchet.
• Disconnect the propeller shaft.
• Disconnect the oil cooler tubes
• Disconnect the throttle linkage
• Disconnect the gearshift control cable (the 411 uses a stick shift)
• Disconnect the nylon semi-rigid fuel pipe at the engine.
• Slacken the bolts attaching the exhaust pipes to the manifold and without removing the bolts run the nuts to the extreme end of the thread.
• Disconnect the heater pipe at engine and disconnect the oil pressure pipe.
• Remove the air cleaner and carburettor and attach the Engine Lifting Fixture (Bracket) Tool C - 3466 to the carburettor flange studs on the intake manifold.
• Take the weight of the engine with a hoist and disconnect the transmission mounting to the chassis.
• Remove the oil filler, air cleaner and raise the back of the engine by the use of slings or jacking sufficiently to allow the transmission to be clear of the chassis.
• Support the transmission and remove the four bolts attaching it to the torque converter casing.
• With adapted lifting tackle it can now be removed from the car.

[Kevin H]

Originally Posted by Claude

There is no 411 shop manual, but the 407-408 shop manual reads as follows....

Wow, what a palava! Although I had a tranny self destruct on a V8 Aston many years ago and that had to come out through the cabin, although it was a convertible which made it easier.

What's actually wrong with the transmission? Just wondering if it can be repaired in in situ.

As it happens, just today I removed the valve body from the transmission on a Mercedes ML430 to change a solenoid in the conductor plate, which sits on top of the valve body .Took about five hours in total before the car was back on the road (although I've done it before so I knew what I was doing). I guess modern cars are a designed to be more serviceable.

[Claude]

Originally Posted by Kevin H

What's actually wrong with the transmission? Just wondering if it can be repaired in in situ.

Short Answer: Vague shifter, wonky shifting, experts baffled after spending my money, and then their own unbilled time. Unlikely it can be fixed in-situ in the absence of a 727 guru.

Long Answer:

When I began restoration of the 411, the US shop suggested that they send the transmission out to be overhauled as a precautionary measure, since the car was being dismantled for corrosion work and rebuilding in the US is cheap. The rebuilder, a reputable company, suggested that for $100 extra, he could take the lock-up function of a similar Chrysler and build it in, along with making the shifting crisper. Unfortunately, before the work could be adequately tested, after chassis repair was completed, the car moved to the metal specialist who cut out all corrosion and welded in new aluminium... and then to the paint shop who ran out of time before the car had to go into a container for shipment to NZ. So I only discovered the transmission flaw when it arrived in Auckland.

The car also still had an engine overheating problem, so I sent the car to a Chrysler performance shop that recommended rebuilding the engine, which he did. He sent the transmission out - which I paid for, but they still could not get it right because the lock-up parts were left in... it was only after three more attempts (that the transmission shop had to do at no charge) that they concluded something was incompatible. In NZ a Chrysler transmission is an exotic, meaning it went in the too hard basket.

When after all the work was done and money spent, we sent the car for its VIN and they required all the repairs be inspected by an independent engineer who said he wanted to cut out the bottom of the freshly restored chassis to inspect its inside. After paying the first few thousand dollars in bills for this process, I saw where this was going... if you want their signature you pay whatever they demand). And the freshly-rebuilt engine still overheated. I quit, towed the car home and got on with other projects.

In 2010, while moving a container from LA to AKL, I bought a 727 transmission in LA and tossed it in the container. I reckon the easiest way to solve this is to just pull the old unit and swap it out. I had the transmission serviced, tested and declared that on the bench it looks fine. I also finally sorted the engine tuning by tossing the Carter and buying a Bates-Engineering-tuned Holly 670 Avenger with electric choke. It starts instantly and purrs, running fine until the temperature gauge climbs. But back to the question...

The current trans symptoms are:

• Vague movement of the shifter. It's a bit of hunt to find reverse or drive
• Upshifting is not as expected. Hard to describe, but it delays, or shifts too early or too late and does not end up in top gear when it should

... and to move on, my wife wants to take over that part of the garage for her art studio, turning her studio into a gallery. So urgency to do something rises.

I contacted SLJ Hacket, who reckons the sale price of the car is in the £29,000 range (less commissions, shipping to the UK and any shop sorting) or about half that if they bought it wholesale for resale. Not a great ROI, but domestic tranquillity is priceless and living on a 1x20 km island with two roads and a speed limit of 50 kph, it's the wrong car for the environment (our active cars are a Mercedes SLK for glorious top down driving and Mercedes G-Wagon for the unsealed roads, plus ebikes that are our primary form of daily transport).

However, the overheating, wonky transmission and the properly repaired but not-painted dent to the LF guard will affect saleability. Better that I do what I can down here than ship off a 7/8th done restoration where the transmission is wonky and the engine overheats.

I may be able to get an assistant to help me pull the power train, but it is very bulky and heavy, and if it was possible to extract just the transmission by removing the interior, it seems like a more attractive option. Hence my original query, hoping someone who owned a 411 would be able to tell me their real life experience removing and replacing a 727 transmission from inside the cockpit.

In any case, the car is now seriously for sale, I have a sense of the market value and expect that the buyer will be overseas, not in NZ. It still has its UK V5 and rego plate, so reregistry to be easier if it goes to the UK. Containers are cheap, about US$1,200 to Felixstowe. Hence the pressure to get the car sorted.

Any and all advice appreciated.

[Kevin H]

Claude,
Your transmission problems could be caused by so many things. There are many tests and adjustments that can be done in situ without removing the transmission from the car, but they require hydraulic fluid pressure measurements, so some specific equipment is needed. The tests require the car to be on a hoist so the engine can be run with the transmission engaged (wheels turning), so if your engine is overheating this complicates things, because you would be limited how long you can run the engine and it will also overheat the transmission fluid as well.

I think perhaps the engine overheating should be tackled first.

Here's a link to a fault diagnosis list for the Torqueflite A-727-A
https://mega.nz/#!odoBBKzS!L0PpIYGPS...5mLHDwUL2Facus (this is the first time I have used Mega for sharing files so please let me know if there are any issues).

[Claude]

Originally Posted by Kevin H

Claude,


I think perhaps the engine overheating should be tackled first.
(this is the first time I have used Mega for sharing files so please let me know if there are any issues).

Thanks Kevin. The Mega works, but my problem is that the shop tried something flawed. They combined two transmissions to make mine become a lockup, and in the process installed something incompatible. Easier to just replace it.

But if you have a diagnostic for what to check on overheating, I would love to see it. Otherwise I may begin by pulling the radiator and water pump and having them checked and rebuilt. If I keep having trouble with the engine, I will try to track down the 383 that I sent down to South Island at the time I bought the transmission... it is still around, I may just have them check it over and put both of them in and be done with the powertrain that has caused me so much wasted money.