Is it

1) A redneck body lift

or

2) The last ditch, last chance attempt at trying to reinstall the transmission?


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Of course, it's #2.

It took me and Tdaaj a couple hours, 2 jacks and 2 lengths of rope to get the old transmission OUT of the truck several weeks ago. Just plain not enough room for the bellhousing to clear the 240mm pressure plate before the tranny tail hits the floor, and the top of the bell hit the tunnel as well. Gravity helped in removal, but reinstall was another issue.

3 weekends I spent rying to either force it under the floor, or various angles it just wouldn't let the tail clear the floor before the bell hit the pressure plate. I needed more room!

Normally I would have removed the engine. In fact, that was the original plan. Unfortunately someone in the past routed the exhaust with a 45 degree bend right at the collector, which made it impossible to reach 2 of the 3 flange studs holding the tailpipe to the manifold. One nut was so badly obscured the only way to get at it would be to remove the manifold from the engine.

I didn't want to cut the tailpipe off since it was brand new less than a month before the transmission grenaded itself. Besides, I can't weld so I'd have to tow it to a muffler shop to have it redone.

So the last ditch idea was to lift the cab. Gain clearance between the pesky torsion-bar-anchor crossmember and the cab floor.

Ended up breaking 3 of the 4 bolts (I left the front 2 alone). Why did Nissan find it necessary to loctite the cab bolts? 620s don't have loctite on the cab bolts, do they really think they'd vibrate off?

The lumber was placed atop the frame under the body to provide about 4" of lift in the rear.

Next, was to try getting the transmission in. Unlike some folks here I have a hard time lifting the tranny just to move it in the garage, let alone bench-press it under the truck. So again the tranny was balanced precariously on the floor jack, and a rope tied around the tail. The rope was used to pull the tranny tail up over the crossmember. As before, the tail end ended up jamming up into the cab, but this time I had enough clearance to crowbar it back through the floor. Amazingly, once the tranny was under the floor I had enough room to shove it back, past the pressure plate and it went right up where it belonged.

Getting the input shaft aligned in the clutch disk was the typical difficult process but a couple jack adjustments and a little cussing later it slid home with a dull thump.

All that's left is reassembly and a trip to the hardware store to replace all the bolts I broke. Hopefully this transmission will last a little longer (hah! The old one had 219,990 miles on it). Then I have to take the bugger through smog since it's still new enough to need that.

Redneck body lift.

Got everything bolted in Saturday, replaced the 2 center cab bolts with non-metric stuff (12mm metric bolts: $3 apiece. 3/8" SAE bolts: $0.53 each. Guess why I didn't buy metric). One bolt and insulator is never gonna be replaced, as I broke off the bolt in the cab. Oh well.

Since the tabs expired in March '05 I just ran it around the block, I did run it in all 5 gears and reverse and it was quiet. Unfortunately I did find metal shavings on the drain plug when I pulled it (should've checked that before I bought it) but the amount wasn't much, no big pieces, probably just a couple gear grinding incidents in it's past. Sitting around has done in some of the electronics though- the brake light won't shut off (fluid is good and brakes work just fine) and neither will the seat belt light (buzzer does go off with the timer). The dome light won't turn on with the door open either. The last 2 are controlled by the same timer unit which probably got corroded.

Well, maybe next week I'll get it into the emissions station to have it checked. I have severe doubts it'll pass as it only passed running like crap in 2002 (when it ran nice and smooth it failed miserably). Since I can't remember which way I turned the distributor to make it pass I'll see if maybe the newer catalytic converter from 2004 makes a difference.

Oh, the truck has a good cat in it. I ran through smog in 2002 with what looked to be original parts, but the tailpipe fell off in Nov 2004 (the muffler broke at the end cap, so I just snapped off the pipe at the cat and continued on my merry way). When I had the tailpipe replaced I got a new cat (the old one was collapsed) and it "smells" like it's working.

It's the only rig I have that has to go through smog, and it will become exempt in 2008 (unless laws change) but I'm not gonna wait THAT long.

congrats