Patient ready for surgery!

Starting at the end: here's the transmission, sitting on the workbench, ready for surgery:

The surgery is to correct a problem with the shifter, that causes it to flop all the way to the right instead of centering as it should. A common problem, and one that is not too difficult to fix - but you have to remove the trans to do it! If I had known the difficulties we would face in getting that trans out, I might have just lived with it. But, this is a project car, after all...  Kelly Williams was a great help, spending probably 7 or 8 hours across 3 visits. I probably spent another 7-8 hours, including the time spent building the wooden structure to support the engine at the front.

Let's look at the excellent diagram posted by Vinci at Bimmerforums, at this link: webspace.ringling.edu/~dplassma/cj/cj.html

He includes this legend: Yellow is E14 Torx, green is E12, blue is E11, and purple is 10mm hex. The blue ones were the first to give me pause, because no set I could find includes an E11 socket. He said as much in his excellent notes - he bought his from a Snap-on truck. But others on Bimmerforums said that they found no E11 bolts - just E12 and E14. That was the case on my trans as well, thank goodness.

The other thing about this picture is that it's of the transmission looking from the front. When you're trying to get the trans unbolted, you're looking from the back, so it's a mirror image. That caused me some confusion, but I eventually learned to look at the picture as if I had walked around behind it.

I had previously posted about the difficulty we had removing bolt #5, one of the big E14 bolts. After that, I hoped for smooth sailing, and another big bolt, #8, came right out. But #1 and #7 were stuck, stuck, stuck. Part of the problem was the difficulty in even reaching the bolts. The other was that my motley collection of extensions, needed to reach over 2 feet into the depths of the engine, just added too much slack and wobble to be able to apply enough torque to break them free. So, I ordered these:

Hard to tell without something to give it scale, but the longest of these 1/2" drive extensions is 30 inches long. Being able to reach that depth with a single strong bar made a huge difference.

The other thing I did that apparently did work was to keep using penetrating oil. I'm very impressed with this ProMech oil I was using. I first read about it in Hot Rod magazine, and they claimed it had the ability to leech into a much tighter joint than traditional oils.  I ordered a can - it's not available locally. I also found this at the Home Depot that was very useful:

I have no idea what would use a "micro-fuel line" with only 3/32" inside diameter, but it turns out that is a nice friction fit with the little extension straw on the ProMech can. And it was only 4 bucks for 10 feet - probably a lifetime supply. I rigged up this extension for the penetrating oil, and was able to reach into those tight places and really douse those stuck bolts. When they finally gave up, we found the ProMech oil on the bolt shaft and threads - it worked!

One other unusual setup I'll report. Bolt #6 is a regular 10mm bolt, which must be removed from the engine side of the trans. It was easy to see, but seemingly impossible to reach with either regular wrenches or sockets because the exhaust manifold was in the way. I finally discovered that a 1/4" drive socket extension was skinny enough to slip between the two exhaust downpipes, and that plus a universal joint and a long socket was enough to reach the bolt. I wasn't able to get a picture in the car, but this is what the setup and angles looked like - sorry that I managed to get my finger in the picture:

So, when Kelly came over tonight, we had only bolts #1 and #7 to go - the two big, stuck bolts. I suggested that we try to break them both free while we were fresh. #7 was first - easier to reach. The fit was so tight that I had to use a short 3/8" extension near the bolt, and then used my new 30" extension to reach beyond the back of the trans. Crack! It broke loose right away, and was clearly going to come out easily.

So, we moved to #1. Lord, that was a trial. I was sitting at the back of the trans with my head in the transmission tunnel, and Kelly was lying at the front of the trans, trying to guide the socket onto the bolt. It didn't help that the bolt head had been compromised in a previous attempt. Finally, Kelly tried to put just the socket on the bolt. It wouldn't go, but by getting it started, I was able to use the long extension as a punch, and hammer it on from the back. After many trials with universal joints, I finally found a wobble style extension (didn't even remember I owned that), and we were able to drive it on, and then break it loose.

After the bolts were out, it was still tough to get the trans to slip free. Much prying, using of wedges, and even using a ratchet strap to tug from the back, we were able to finally get it loose after maybe half an hour. Then, we had to move the trans from the jack to a temporary stand so we could remove the "tower" we had built to reach the trans, and then move the trans back on the jack to roll it out.  Here it is after being rolled free - what a sense of accomplishment!

Getting it all back together will be another trial, but with all new bolts and with the bolt holes cleaned and chased with my new metric thread chasers, it should be easier to reassemble. But I still have more to disassemble. Next time, the clutch assembly and starter.