hi everyone, i am a ford truck owner but a complete novice when it comes to mustangs.

i am gearing up to help my neighbour with the rear main seal and oil pan gasket on his 1988 5.0 litre automatic (no, i'm not THAT nice a guy ... he built a sundeck for me, now it's payback time).

we will be doing this with the engine still in the car, removing the tranny.

i have done a few tranny re&re jobs so i kinda know what to expect, but just wondering if there are any things to watch out for on these cars that might not be mentioned in the haynes manual.

thanks for any insights you may have.

joe

 

Sorry, I can't help you. But, welcome to CMOC.

 

Rear main seal is a one piece, so yes it can be accessed with the trans removed. However the oil pan fits pretty tight to the engine crossmember and steering rack, and it is also a one piece affair, so to access it you'll have to either lift the engine up or lower the crossmember for access.


cheers
Ed

 

well, we got that done ... as noted by fast Ed the engine has to be lifted to to the oil pan gasket. all in all, not a fun job for two old dudes. there seems to be a small leak still coming from the rear main area, but i am hoping that the seal will just seat in after a few miles.

one related question ... at first we thought we had greatly overfilled the AOD tranny so we siphoned out about a quart ... after that it appeared to be greatly underfilled and, in fact was lagging going into gear ... so back in goes a quart; again, now it looks like it is way overfilled. we did this for a few cycles til we decided that just 1 quart up or down makes a HUUUUUUGE difference in what shows on the dipstick . finally, we just put in enough to make the thing shift properly.

is it normal for just 1 quart to make such a huge difference on the dipstick in these trannys ? never had this happen before on other vehicles.