I am a fairly proficient home mechanic and have replaced rear wheel drive automatic and manual trannies. I have never replaced a front wheel drive tranny. I have a very good friend I want to help out. How hard is it to replace the front wheel drive tranny in this vehicle? Should I tackle it?
It is much more difficult than in a rear drive vehicle; on some FWD vehicles, the engine has to be lifted out first. Go to the library, and look up the procedure in a Haynes or similar manual. You may decide against it!
Thank you very much Docnic for your opinion. I will follow your advice and check the library.
If anyone else has actually done this on this vehicle I would appreciate your comments.
The engine doesn’t need to be lifted out first. But the entire subframe along with the suspension components need to be lowered prior to transmission removal.
Tester
Thank you for your input Tester. That sounds do-able. I think I am going to give it a shot. I’m going to make sure i can get the old one out before looking around for a used one. The old one is stuck in 2nd gear. I have rebuilt manual transmissions with rebuild kits ( 1700 international to be specific ) but have never tackled an automatic. Would I be crazy to try that?
This transmission is an electronically controled unit. The fact that the transmission is stuck in second may because the PCM is commanding ‘limp home’ mode. Is the Check Engine Light ‘on’? Have you scanned the PCM for DTC codes?
Thank you for your suggestion Researcher. I just took my friend at his word, who took his mechanics word that the tranny was bad. My bad for doing that.
I will ask him if his “check engine” light is on, if his mechanic did a scan and if so what the resultant error codes were.
Thank you so much.
You will need a topside engine support fixture to keep the engine in the engine compartment during this job. Cheapest one around runs about $60 from Harbor Freight Tools. If you don’t have a store near you, you can order one online. When I ordered mine, they were back-ordered and I had to wait a month and a half for it, so good luck.
I thought about this. The van is just used for local quick trips, dump runs, and farm duty. They are not really that concerned with it’s outward appearance. I was just thinking about throwing something across the top of the engine compartment and strapping the engine to that. Sort of a sling thing. If it dings or maybe scrathes it up a bit it’s no biggie. We are just trying to find an inexpensive way to get it back into use. Thanks for confirming that I will have to figure out a way to hold it up when the lower suspension and support members are removed.