pbonsalb, thanks for the suggestion of possibly going at this from the top, but I removed the transmission
support crossmember and console, and that gave me pretty good access from the bottom.
I spent some time on this issue today. The picture below shows the selector shaft before I started working on it. The blue circle
shows a drip that is forming on the shaft.
After supporting the transmission and removing the transmission support pieces (and cleaning up the mess), you have pretty good
access the the shift linkage from the two sides:
With the transmission supports out of the way, I was able to:
- Remove the two clips holding the shifter linkage
- Pry out the shifter linkage bar (bushing were remarkably tight after 111K miles)
- Remove the lock ring holding the dowel pin in the coupling at the end of the selector shaft
- Remove the dowel pin
- Slide the coupling off the end of the selector shaft
The dowel pin was stuck in there, and it took about a dozen times of pushing it up, then back down to finally get it to move up enough
to slide the coupling off.
So here is where I am now, with the seal ready to come out:
I tested access to the seal with a small screwdriver, but with the Flex Disc in place, there is very little room up there. Normally the
procedure at this point would be to drop the exhaust, heat shields, and driveshaft to allow removal of the Flex Disc. But, I currently
only have a scissor lift which restricts access to the center of the chassis, so removing the exhaust is not an option at this point (I'm
getting a proper 2-Post lift in the shop that I'm building, but that won't be ready for a while).
Question - is there any way to remove the Flex Disc without dropping the driveshaft? I tried unbolting it from the output flange
and pushing it back, but without loosening the clamping sleeve near the center bearing, I didn't expect it to move (and it didn't).
At this point I'm going to wait until the new seal arrives on Tuesday to see how it is constructed, and then consider fabricating a tool
to help with removal. I'm also waiting, to see if anyone knows of any trick to remove the Flex Disc without dropping the driveshaft -
perhaps I'll post this question as a new topic.
If I succeed in getting this replaced, I post a proper DIY.