I made the mistake of removing my transmission pan. I saw cruiser54’s warning against this after the operation. Besides the point, but transmission innards look good and the trans mount looks bad.

Anyway, twice now I’ve installed the pan and had a pan leak both times. In trying to determine the problem, I noticed the pan isn’t particularly flat. Is this normal? Would it be worth it to pull one from a JY, repair this, or buy new? I’m leaning toward new if this isn’t normal.

Lastly, I did buy a 1/4” torque wrench, so this shouldn’t be as much of a problem in the future.

 

Yes, that's a problem and usually caused by a thick, soft gasket and overtorqing the fasteners. Take a hammer and flatten it back out and check with a straight edge. When you seal it again, use a small bead of silicon on either side of the gasket (if you use one). Silicone sealers shrink slightly when they cure, especially the cheap stuff. I like to lightly snug the bolts just enough to get a little squish on the silicon. Then go have lunch, a beer or what ever and let it sit for an hour while the silicon to sets up a little more firmly. Then do the find torquing of the screws. Good call on the torque wrench as the threads on the tranny are aluminum and strip very easily. If you manage to strip them, they can be retapped to 1/4-20 screws.

 

Thanks! I used a thick rubber gasket previously and over tightened. I’ll beat the pan a bit and worst case, acquire a replacement. The new gasket is cork, so i’ll use beads of silicon and plan on never opening the pan again.

Thanks again!

 

Put a narrow piece of wood under the lip of the pad and carefully hammer the raised areas down.

I'll tell you from experience, I hate cork gaskets. I've never had luck with them whatsoever

I ended up using a thick silicone gasket and that was even worse then the cork. What finally worked was a nice Felpro gasket and thin coat of triple black rtv on each side

 

I think the best that's available is a rubberized cork.

 

I beat the pan into submission and got it back together. Initially, at least, there are no leaks.

I did however, accidentally drop the transmission (and transfer case, while replacing the transmission mount. Complete idiot move of course.

I can’t shift my transfer case. I’m going to see what I can find regarding transfer case linkage. My hope and assumption is that the linkage broke and not the actual transfer case.

If I recall it’s a hideously complicated mechanism...