I fought the trans pan filter, and the trans pan filter won. I thought i'd be able to get it done with out dropping the exhaust but it turns out there's a chain reaction of crap i couldnt deal with. Couldnt drop the pan because i couldnt get the cross member out so the pan would clear the pickup tube. Couldnt get the cross member out because the cats were in the way and i couldnt fit the bottle jack in there to spread the frame. Couldnt drop the exhaust because i didnt have the 12 pt socket and the bolts dont want to go anywhere. Essentially it was the longest (4-5hr) transmission fluid change in america. So frustrating. But none the less im moving forward. Gonna get my muffler put in next week irrespective of the trans filter. So So annoying

 

I thought all you had to do was drop the x-member...crap, thanks for the info.

 

Yeah its not a very fun job thats for sure.

 

that is all you have to do. The problem is, you need to spread the frame to drop the member, and in order to do that, you need to move the cats. It's unbelievably convoluted. Im gonna take a pass on this one and stare at my unused trans filter kit every day to remind me that i dont win all my fights with that truck. It may never get done considering how much it sucks

 

Thanks for the great news

Seriously thanks for posting, I was going to try and tackle this in a couple of weeks. Unless someone's got a better idea, I'll save my pennies and take it to my mech.

 

I've seen the cross member removed without jacking the frame apart. They just hammered the cross member out with a sledge, and then hammered it back in.

 

I was really hammering on it with a rubber mallet. The thing was moving but I couldn't see a clear way to get it out (let alone back in) considering how tight it was to the fram rails. The issue when I hammered it forward was it started to bump into the cats, and when I hammered it back it would hit the hump in the trans pan. Even if you smashed it all the way forward into the cats, there's not enough clearance for the pan to clear the pickup tube at the front of the trans (which I was warned about.) I can't imagine even if you could get the xmember out how the HELL you'd get it back in without spreading the frame. Total nightmare project. Btw, it took me longer to line the xmember back up so all the bolts fit than to do anything else. That thing is a beast. Hopefully new exhaust and my flowmaster super44 this week.

 

Sweet, keep us posted on how it's coming along.