Easiest 727/904 rebuild thread...

[j par]

I've encouraged people to rebuild their automatic transmissions and stick shift transmissions for that matter ever since I've done it myself for the first time and found out how terribly easy it is. I've said it once I've said it a million times if you're going to go through all the trouble of taking the transmission out and being the one to put it back in do not give the easy part of rebuilding it to somebody and pay them a boatload of money to do it....
Hopefully I'm going to debunk all the excuses I've heard over the time now why people won't do it...
Don't have time, don't have skills, don't have tools, don't have space, etc etc...
First and foremost time that seems to be the one that everybody gets on... If you clock yourself from the minute you pull your car into the garage and start getting it up on jack stands for however you fix to pull the transmission out and time yourself and tell me how long it is before you have it out and up and on your bench Lock stock and barrel. Then the harder part getting it all put back in there with all the linkage back on all the bolts back in the driveline back on the transmission back on completely everything hooked up and ready to start... Now add all that time up so I can start adding my time up to how long it takes to rebuild the transmission...
I'm going to rebuild or I should probably say refresh a 727 8-in short shaft big block automatic. I will point out the differences between the short shaft and the long shaft and try to get a few of the differences and different tools for the 904 as well...
My suggestion at this point is to go to the Dollar tree and spend $3 on three jugs of awesome and $2 on two toilet ones or bristle scrubbers. You can set the transmission up on its bellhousing preferably after you drain the oil out of it and start scrubbing it and rinsing it off and try to get it as clean as you can for now I.e. get the credit off.. I'm not going to count that hour or two against the refresh rebuild time...

 

[j par]

And please remember this is going to cost me plenty of extra time to keep taking off my gloves and taking pictures of my progress beyond the price of my gloves LOL...

 

[hosehead]

Following this! Thanks Jpar!

 

[Plymouth 65]

I typically take the transmission apart and wash the casing and tailshaft housing with a power washer. Dry it off with compressed air. 65'

 

[j par]

I typically take the transmission apart and wash the casing and tailshaft housing with a power washer. Dry it off with compressed air. 65'

Agreed and we'll get to that. For now I'm just giving some advice to the guys who have really grimy greasy Gopher guts all over their transmission to knock off the heavy crud first..
And at that a good $5 way to do it...

 

[j par]

So the subject at hand today is a big block 1972 727 8-in short shaft transmission for a divorced transfer case power wagon... The first thing I do is start by taking many pictures of the exterior like I will show you here for reference later in case I have need of any direction on how to put the exterior stuff back together but first off I'm going to get that stuff off and most of you won't have to deal with the big bolt holding the yoke on the back of the transmission you'll have a slip yoke in which case you'll probably have a snap ring that has to separate underneath the mount then I'll get to that as well with my parts transmission that I plan to use for this transmission. I stood back so you can really see the minimal amount of space I'm looking to use. I've done this on a 4 ft by 2 ft sheet of plywood on two chairs opposing each other as a bench if need be so don't give me this crap about how you don't have any room... I'm going to take some time right now to try and clear off the bench a little bit of some of the things on there to give me just a tidbit more room.. also I'll break out the so-called special tools besides just wrenches and sockets...

 

[j par]

Again let's start with talking special tools. Yes if you look at my tool assortment 98% of it is just harbor freight junk and pieces of scrap metal and a toothpick LOL with standing the couple nice ratchets my son gave me. First and foremost the set of snap ring openers in between the two pieces of metal from harbor freight that's a must it's a great tool for opening up snap rings. Now the little bent piece of metal or I should say c channel on the right is for a 904 transmission putting the forward I believe drum into that it may be the reverse drum putting that over the spring retainer and pushing it into your vise you're able to get the snap ring out and unload that drum and put everything back in again the piece on the right is for a 904. I strongly believe the two little pieces on the left of metal are for the 727 and I can't remember how to use them but we'll get there. Beyond that I have four old pairs of snap ring pliers that I use in various ways that an American wrenches and sockets. For the yoke bolt I have an inch and 1/8 socket and I jammed a little crowbar in there which usually I use a plumbers wrench to hold it but I can't find it..
Also I set a shoebox there to collect all these exterior parts and it seems as the speedo gear is missing and how to rag in the hole I'll find one of those at a later time...

 

[j par]

Now time to get started let me set the buzzer it is 12:16..

 

[JoePole1]

 

[j par]

Okay a normal mechanical thing happened LOL stop the clock that didn't count I imagine 90% of you guys will be dealing with a slip yoke and this back will already be off so I just took the last 37 minutes with the biggest longest wrenches I had set the transmission on the ground jumping on both sides no go broke out the torch heated up the bolt no go more bp blaster penetrant no go finally a cold chisel and a hammer at the bolt till I got it to jar loose and then the big breaker bars and finally a puller to get the yolk to break loose from the splines LOL again this shouldn't count against any time this should be already off.
Since this is a very short shaft it doesn't have a rear bearing in the tail housing which for you guys under your transmission mounts on your normal 904s there will be a snap ring beneath to large Phillips screws that have a plate they hold down that you spread apart and get it off of the tell housing. I hope that's not the stick shift that I'm thinking about... Or maybe both..
Okay we're going to restart the clock at 1:00 in 3 minutes I'm going to get something to drink I'm already sweating from getting that one bolt off LOL...

 

[j par]

Well it took about an hour to get the transmission apart and in subsections. But I'll ask this one is a bust it's pretty much all paperweight...
I'll have to start again with a better transmission. I did expect to have to replace most of the guts with another transmission that I have it was not expecting the actual big block outer housing could be damaged as well. Also I was hoping the tail shaft was going to be usable but it looks like that is rusted beyond usability...
Looks like I'll get another one and try again...
Also you can see where I stuck with screwdriver inside there once the valve body was off. I took out the front pump bolts in from behind tapped it with a screwdriver on the sides and on the top real lightly till it popped out. This avoids having all the pullers and all that and I even posted a picture of the back side of it after it came out you can see the little scratches at the scrubber put in it but no real damage I'm sure this won't be seen when you cross the mirrors up Eric jackson lol...

 

[j par]

No hypothetically continuing this thread and I will do another one when I do this with good parts but let's call that one hour taking it apart and then I would say about an hour on each one of the three to four subsections so maybe four more hours getting it all correct for the subsections and then another two or three hours maybe to put it together you can imagine just doing this in one hour section should probably have 8 hours into it. That wouldn't include like scrubbing and cleaning and maybe painting the outer casing and stuff like that if you want to get real fancy and I usually do.
This is why I pro should be doing about three of these a day...

 

[j par]

Good news local parts guy is going to try and make good.. he said bring the old one out and bring my tools and pull another one off of an engine... It wasn't expecting them to do anything as we do take our chances when we buy these old parts but I let him know and showed pictures and he does want to make good so there's a very nice thing. There's some other things that he has and I'll probably buy some other stuff as well just to make everything double good...
To be continued....

 

[j par]

Okay people were back in business! And even better the guy wasn't able to produce a short shaft transmission for me at this time but in April at the swap meet I'll catch up with him...
I did trade some parts for a 904 transmission and it looks pretty good. I'm still going to take it apart and put new gaskets in it likely and check the clutches and so forth.... And remember both transmissions will have a different pan size and gasket on the bottom the valve bodies are identical.. three flat head screws to take the filter off and 10 -7/16 bolts to get the valve body off and of course you have to take the shift levers off for it to pop out... But again everything exterior should be off of it before you start taking the pan off...
As for now here's a picture of that short shaft big block transmission reassembled with a box of parts from the exterior. That took about 45 minutes to put it back together....

 

[j par]

Next up 904.. this will be good...
This thing needs a power washing first....

 

[4spdragtop]

Cmon already!

 

[j par]

Cmon already!

LOL...

 

[CudaFactHackJob]

Do we really need another TF trans video? Especially when you don't even know what the forward drum and direct drum are called? You called the direct drum; the forward drum. And just prying on the internals can break parts. And with no oil around the outside of the pump? Feel free to proceed and I'll just straighten out the mess along the way.

 

[j par]

Do we really need another TF trans video? Especially when you don't even know what the forward drum and direct drum are called? You called the direct drum; the forward drum. And just prying on the internals can break parts. And with no oil around the outside of the pump? Feel free to proceed and I'll just straighten out the mess along the way.

LOL...

 

[j par]

Do we really need another TF trans video? Especially when you don't even know what the forward drum and direct drum are called? You called the direct drum; the forward drum. And just prying on the internals can break parts. And with no oil around the outside of the pump? Feel free to proceed and I'll just straighten out the mess along the way.

Well after some thought maybe a different reply is needed here... I never claim to be any kind of guru and knowing I'm doing everything right or naming every part as it is. And I'm not going to do a video as you said. What I'm trying to point out is any dumbo like myself can rebuild one of these transmissions and have great success.. as I have in the past even doing them for the first time..
It's people like you that put all these scary thoughts and people's heads that direct them to somebody that will charge them through the nose for such a simple task... They go do all the hard work of getting it out and get it down to the transmission guy who puts $100 rebuild kit in it if that and gives it back to them for $900 which took them probably two and a half three hours to do at the most and then they spend the next 4 days trying to get it back into the car...
I'm saying without knowing the name of every doohickey in there it's pretty much take it apart and put it back together the same way you took it apart.... I'm not sure which parts you suggesting I was prying on and I got the transmission completely dry sitting outside for 50 years. It was garbage and now I've started on another one. The strat isn't for the ultimate drag racer with the ultimate goals in mind. This is just for a guy who wants to rebuild his tranny and freshen it up a little bit and I am just a first-timer second timer untrained and completely unskilled so take it for what it is... I highly suggest if someone wants their transmission to hold back 3 million horsepower to take it to somebody else but if you're just looking for a refresh of your factory internals without all the technical blue blah and some homemade tools and you only want to spend a hundred bucks or less doing it and have it work great and stay tuned...

 

[j par]

Anyways back to the regular scheduled program I got it outside today the 9:04 and power washed it the best I could. I had never tried my red nozzle and even that bounced off the dirt LOL.. I got it down to where you can see most of the transmission at least at this point and what I was talking about just giving it a good power wash to get most of the crud off. When all the guts are out of it it's just a very light aluminum case and then I can put it on a table and really get at it and get it clean externally. Also for those of you who don't have a power washer I've taken them down to the car wash and blasted the hell out of them on my tailgate standing on the bed of the truck.. bring eye protection! That s*** is going everywhere...

 

[4spdragtop]

 

[Mopar Sam]

I've encouraged people to rebuild their automatic transmissions and stick shift transmissions for that matter ever since I've done it myself for the first time and found out how terribly easy it is. I've said it once I've said it a million times if you're going to go through all the trouble of taking the transmission out and being the one to put it back in do not give the easy part of rebuilding it to somebody and pay them a boatload of money to do it....

I agree 100%
I'd be more inclined to pay for having it removed/installed. I would much rather stand or sit at my workbench, than be under a car getting crud in my eyes.

 

[CudaFactHackJob]

Right, you didn't say what you pried against to remove the pump...BUT YOU SHOULD HAVE. Fools are going to be breaking off the direct drum (front doohickey) lugs. Most pumps won't come out that way anyways. You have to oil around the pump; like with some WD40 or Land-O-Lakes; who cares...but dry is a fight. I don't even like the stuff you're using to clean them up...Easy-Off baby! I'll be watching; ready to pounce with more technical blue bla.. Oh, and when you go to the car wash, pull forward so you can set your parts over the center grate; it keeps the car wash guys happy; so they might not kick you out. And tell them that you're using non-petroleum based, water soluble EPA approved biodegradable cleaner....that's what I had to tell my SoCal car wash owner in order to get him to let me stay..foreelz.

 

[CFD244]

Give er' hell j par

Following

I found that I really needed the correct terminology when I was asking questions, and ordering parts. LOL.....forward drum (where it is), forward drum (what it does).....2 different drums. Confusing to say the least! Pass the Tylenol!