Pulling a ZF6

Arisley · Apr 29, 2014

That 140 dollar Harbor freight tranny jack worked fine for my auto. Strap it tight. Tuck the slack ends out of the way.

A floor jack is to narrow to be stable with that much weight on it. It can be done, and I have done it, but it is no fun.

TrailerHauler · Apr 29, 2014

The whole clutch assembly stays bolted to the flywheel, and the trans slides right off of it. Think of it like leaving a torque convertor bolted to the flex plate and pulling the trans off, except it won't be draining trans. fluid all over hell.

Whenever I pull one I like to leave it in gear so that you can spin the input shaft to line up the splines on the clutch plate.

Also after the transmission cross member is pulled and the back of the trans is dropped a bit, I was always able to get on the top two bolts with a half inch ratchet and short socket.

Arisley said:
That 140 dollar Harbor freight tranny jack worked fine for my auto. Strap it tight. Tuck the slack ends out of the way.

A floor jack is to narrow to be stable with that much weight on it. It can be done, and I have done it, but it is no fun.

I'll second this. I've also used both, the trans adapter for a normal floor jack sucks like you said. It's narrow and tipsy. But the more expensive "transmission jack" they sell worked fine the couple times I used it also.

Arisley · Apr 29, 2014

I have the plate modified to perfectly fit the bottom of the 4R100. Two straps running front to back to hold it all together tight enough that if it falls over, it would still be on the stand. Hope that never happens.

hwrdbd · Apr 29, 2014

It is super easy to reach the top bellhousing bolts with some long extensions. Just sit at the rear of the tranny and you aren't all twisted up trying to reach in there. Personally I pull the t-case off, its only a few bolts and you can lay underneath and slide it off by yourself.

In response to the guy pulling the dd clutch-make sure you keep everything in its proper order and orientation when pulling that clutch apart. You don't want to rotate the floater plate from its current position.

renegade · Apr 29, 2014

Leave trans in 5th or 6th so you have better mechanical advantage to turn the trans, works opposite way the trans does when driven from engine, low gear take less engine power, but much more power to turn from output end. OD will actually make it easier to turn by hand. Test it your self, put trans in OD on a hill without e-brake on and truck will roll easily, put it in low or reverse and it wont.

Arisley · Apr 29, 2014

renegade said:
Leave trans in 5th or 6th so you have better mechanical advantage to turn the trans, works opposite way the trans does when driven from engine, low gear take less engine power, but much more power to turn from output end. OD will actually make it easier to turn by hand. Test it your self, put trans in OD on a hill without e-brake on and truck will roll easily, put it in low or reverse and it wont.

Good tip right there. Learned that one the hard way.

I also get the top bolts from the back of the trans. Do them first. Always pull the hard bolts first and put them in last.

fordornothing · Apr 29, 2014

The engine will tip back when you pull the trans. Use a soft piece of wood between the jack and oil pan.

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CTFFEMT · Apr 29, 2014

sniper_101 said:
I just have to ask, why neutral? No resistance when pulling it out?

I left mine in low gear, low range. Made it easy to turn the output shaft/input shaft when stabbing the trans back in.

rascal said:
The tranny is in neutral and the tcase is in 2WD. That is what my Chilton manual suggested.

this. It was just a suggestion based off the Chilton manual. I will keep the low gear low range in mind for next time though. Seems like a good idea.

rascal · Apr 30, 2014

fordornothing said:
The engine will tip back when you pull the trans. Use a soft piece of wood between the jack and oil pan.

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WHen you say soft piece of wood what do you mean? All I have are 2x4 & 2x6. I am afraid of crushing the oil pan. How much movement are we talking about here?

hwrdbd · Apr 30, 2014

What you want to do is leave the tranny still bolted to the block for a minute, and lower it down a little ways. This will tip the front of the engine up. When I did it I used a couple small pieces of wood to slide between the crossmember and the oil pan. I put one under each side, close to the vertical edges of the pan since that's the strongest part. Then you jack the tranny back up a little, just to take the weight off the bellhousing bolts for removal. This prevents the engine from tipping forward after removal, and makes it easier to stab the tranny back in.
You don't need a very thick piece of wood in there, just something slightly bigger than the gap that exists when everything is properly mounted.

edit-as previously stated, don't leave tranny in super low gear. It will still work, but be much harder for you to turn. Think about how many rpm the engine has to turn for you to go 10 mph in L, a lot. While the output shaft isn't spinning that fast. You want to be able to grab the output shaft and easily spin the input shaft to assist you in lining up the splines during reinstallation. If you're in L, one output shaft turn might equal 5 input shaft revolutions. Choose a higher gear to make it a little easier on yourself. Keep in mind I made up that 1:5 ratio to prove my point and don't know the actual ratios in the zf6 lol

rascal · Apr 30, 2014

hwrdbd said:
What you want to do is leave the tranny still bolted to the block for a minute, and lower it down a little ways. This will tip the front of the engine up. When I did it I used a couple small pieces of wood to slide between the crossmember and the oil pan. I put one under each side, close to the vertical edges of the pan since that's the strongest part. Then you jack the tranny back up a little, just to take the weight off the bellhousing bolts for removal. This prevents the engine from tipping forward after removal, and makes it easier to stab the tranny back in.
You don't need a very thick piece of wood in there, just something slightly bigger than the gap that exists when everything is properly mounted.

edit-as previously stated, don't leave tranny in super low gear. It will still work, but be much harder for you to turn. Think about how many rpm the engine has to turn for you to go 10 mph in L, a lot. While the output shaft isn't spinning that fast. You want to be able to grab the output shaft and easily spin the input shaft to assist you in lining up the splines during reinstallation. If you're in L, one output shaft turn might equal 5 input shaft revolutions. Choose a higher gear to make it a little easier on yourself. Keep in mind I made up that 1:5 ratio to prove my point and don't know the actual ratios in the zf6 lol

Thank you for the tips! Much appreciated!

fordornothing · May 1, 2014

Well with the trans removed, the engine will tip back until the up pipes/ collector hit the firewall. I had a cedar block that worked pretty good to put under the pan

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rascal · May 5, 2014

Got the ZF-6 pulled this weekend. The engine did not tip forward at all. Used a stack of door shims on both sides of the oil pan just in case.

I pulled it with the transfer case attached but I think I will split it and reinstall the transmission and transfer case seperately. The two together are a bit akward to handle as a single unit.

It appears a previous owner had the clutch replaced once since it has "remanufactured" stickers on the pressure plate. It also appears that the release bearing had dug into the fingers on the pressure plate once before. The transmission and clutch had ben operating fine before I started this so not sure what caused it. Probably happened before I got the truck.

Sending my trans to a shop in Ft. Worth to get the internal pump repaired/replaced while I address my oil leak and install my new SouthBend HD clutch and flywheel.

I am sure I do not need to tell a lot of you but that tranny is huge! Here is a pic of it in front of the wife's XTerra for some scale.

fordornothing · May 6, 2014

If you put the trans back in separate, the bolts going to the t case are a pain to get to. Especially on the exhaust side. I'd invest in a ratchet wrench if you don't have one already.

Blow the cooler lines out too

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littleredstroker · May 6, 2014

call me crazy. I just rocked motor back till uppies hit the fire wall and left it there...had trans out 3 times like that. makes getting to top bolts on my 4r extremely easy.

pt_ranger_v8 · May 6, 2014

I always pull the t-case when pulling a tranny - that extra 70-80 pounds makes handling the tranny awkward (as you've noticed!).

A ratchet wrench is a must for the tcase bolts - should be a 14mm I think. They don't have to be super tight or anything, but there's not a lot of room under the truck. Use some RTV for a gasket when you reassemble.

Blow the cooler lines out like mentioned above.

Make sure you have the right line-up tool for the pressure plate/clutch disc. Sucks maneuvering that thing around and it won't go in!

Another good idea is to take some althread about 6-8" long and thread it into the two outermost bolt holes. This makes the tranny lined up perfectly, and you just push it forward. It's still heavy, but definitely makes a 1-man operation go smoother.

fordornothing · May 7, 2014

All thread... Used that all the time on different stuff like a gear box for a pumping unit. Why didn't I think of that for the trans??

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