Has anyone ever removed the Fly wheel to torque converter bolts using the access plug holes on the back face of the oil pan. Looks to be a major pain and the only way I've removed these bolts is by dropping the oil pan. Just curious on others experiance.

 

I have, it's not a big deal, I just used a socket and ratchet on the front crank bolt and turned the engine over to line up the bolts. I don't pull the oil pan when I'm going to be working on the trans. (too much extra work)

 

no need to remove the oil pan

 

Has anyone noticed that they were missing any off these little bolts while doing repairs? I have a buddy replacing a trans and on one truck he only had 1 bolt and on the donor there were only 2 bolts. Seeing two in a row make me wonder if it is common for them to vibrate out or what? Trucks are a 99 & 01 with close to 130k on them

 

Yeah This is a symptom of shadetree repair. You need to screw all 4 bolts in about 2 threads then start tightening them. The shadetree guy puts one bolt in drives it home and then strips the next 3 out trying to get them to thread in misaligned holes.

 

Hmmm ok thanks brother

 

If they came lose they should be sitting the the bottome of the bell housing.

I guess its possible for them to come lose but you should place thread lock on the.

The torque is 37FTpds so the do have a decent force holding them in.

 

Probably a good idea to get the torques exact.
Or else the flex plate - flexes too much and metal fatigue will then wreck the flex plate.

Did this to a Ford inline 6 in my younger days "cause I did not learn it" and there was no internet in ancient times.

But, there were vacuum tubes, hippies and woodstock.