Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
Finally did the transmission service on the '72 M300 today. A few surprises, and a couple of obstacles, but overall it went pretty well.
The cable-shifted transmission is actually a standard linkage setup, except there's an extra bracket that holds the cable. The cable end is bolted to the trans arm; fun stuff when the fastener hasn't been turned in 40 years. This particular transmission did not have the part-throttle kickdown setup, which I found surprising since it has to haul around a freakin' motorhome. I advised her to find one, or have me find one for her. I got the valve body out, only to discover that this trans did not have an accumulator spring in it from the factory, which was a downer. I mean, no accumulator spring is a good thing, but it was one of those "all for nothing" efforts. The factory setup for the line pressure was already pretty-much at the max, so dropping the valve body was a complete waste of time. Also, I've never seen a rear band so far out of adjustment in my life. Seriously, there was ¾" or more free play at the apply lever. I'm surprised nothing fell out of there... like, the servo for instance.
Dear Chrysler, did you really need all those God-forsaken cross braces? The only way the pan would come out was with the dipstick removed. Accessing the inspection cover for the flexplate/converter was simply not possible--there's a welded brace in the way. They might as well installed the inspection cover with rivets. These two braces are literally 8" apart and the one blocking the pan also blocks two of the pan bolts.
It wasn't horrible, but there was a lot of eye rolling on my part and it took longer than expected because of these trifles. It needed to be done, though. As is typical with motorhomes, it sat a lot and some of the clutch material was stuck to the pan so hard I nearly had to chisel it out and there was some glitter in the fluid--nothing that would indicate a fatality, just enough to be a little worrisome. I can tell you this: that pan had never been off the transmission since that bloated goat was built.
Here's the funny part: I drained less than 3 quarts of fluid out of that thing, yet it took almost 7 to fill it. As it happens, the owner never actually read the dipstick (meaning the writing, not the level), and had been checking it in Park. I probably could've made the same amount of money just pouring in a few quarts of fluid and calling it good. :doh: But I feel better knowing the bands are correctly adjusted, there's a new filter in place, the throttle-pressure linkage is right and it's got a lot of new Type F/FA fluid in it. Once all was said and done, she told me "It's never, ever gone into reverse that fast in the 5 years I've had it," which tells me I did something good for it.
The bad news (and I didn't tell her this) is that I think it has a bad front-pump seal. No f__kin' way am I tackling that. From what I saw today, I'm pretty certain that transmission has to come out from the top. I'll tell her to pour 12oz. of brake fluid in it and find religion.
The cable-shifted transmission is actually a standard linkage setup, except there's an extra bracket that holds the cable. The cable end is bolted to the trans arm; fun stuff when the fastener hasn't been turned in 40 years. This particular transmission did not have the part-throttle kickdown setup, which I found surprising since it has to haul around a freakin' motorhome. I advised her to find one, or have me find one for her. I got the valve body out, only to discover that this trans did not have an accumulator spring in it from the factory, which was a downer. I mean, no accumulator spring is a good thing, but it was one of those "all for nothing" efforts. The factory setup for the line pressure was already pretty-much at the max, so dropping the valve body was a complete waste of time. Also, I've never seen a rear band so far out of adjustment in my life. Seriously, there was ¾" or more free play at the apply lever. I'm surprised nothing fell out of there... like, the servo for instance.
Dear Chrysler, did you really need all those God-forsaken cross braces? The only way the pan would come out was with the dipstick removed. Accessing the inspection cover for the flexplate/converter was simply not possible--there's a welded brace in the way. They might as well installed the inspection cover with rivets. These two braces are literally 8" apart and the one blocking the pan also blocks two of the pan bolts.
It wasn't horrible, but there was a lot of eye rolling on my part and it took longer than expected because of these trifles. It needed to be done, though. As is typical with motorhomes, it sat a lot and some of the clutch material was stuck to the pan so hard I nearly had to chisel it out and there was some glitter in the fluid--nothing that would indicate a fatality, just enough to be a little worrisome. I can tell you this: that pan had never been off the transmission since that bloated goat was built.
Here's the funny part: I drained less than 3 quarts of fluid out of that thing, yet it took almost 7 to fill it. As it happens, the owner never actually read the dipstick (meaning the writing, not the level), and had been checking it in Park. I probably could've made the same amount of money just pouring in a few quarts of fluid and calling it good. :doh: But I feel better knowing the bands are correctly adjusted, there's a new filter in place, the throttle-pressure linkage is right and it's got a lot of new Type F/FA fluid in it. Once all was said and done, she told me "It's never, ever gone into reverse that fast in the 5 years I've had it," which tells me I did something good for it.
The bad news (and I didn't tell her this) is that I think it has a bad front-pump seal. No f__kin' way am I tackling that. From what I saw today, I'm pretty certain that transmission has to come out from the top. I'll tell her to pour 12oz. of brake fluid in it and find religion.
