Trannie Pan Removal 2000 Silverado

[ukrkoz]

i had this question asked before, and i took for granted advice given. now, that i finally got to it again, i have 2nd thoughts on advice given and just want to reconfirm it, before i bust half transmission case.

so, in it's infinite wisdom(sorry for sarcasm, i am pissed beyond staying polite with how they made it), GM put a gear shifter bracket, bent UNDER the pan, preventing pan from being removed. 2 bolts that hold the bracket in place, are ON THE TOP of transmission, and there is no physical way of getting to them without dropping transmission down. i can slide 2 fingers in and touch them, but that's it.

here's the pics:

 

 

believe me, i tried.

anyhow, advice was given: OH, YOU JUST BEND THE BRACKET AWAY AND SLIDE PAN RIGHT OFF.

ok, i took it for granted then. but i do have a question now:

it is a solid 3mm steel bracket, bent in 2 different dimensions and attached to ALUMINUM CASE.

1. there's no way to bend it just with fingers or even pliers. i work with metals professionally, and i am aware of what it takes to bend something like this in confined space.

2. say, i get monkey wrench on it and bend. what are the chances of ALUMINUM case not ripping?

3. which way do i bend it? do i bend lower piece, bent towards the pan edge, holding shifter, AWAY from the edge, or i bend the WHOLE bracket away, towards the driveshaft? which i am most sure will rip the bolts out along with the piece of case.

4. as the shifter part is bent at 90 to the bracket, how do i prevent bracket from ripping out of the case?

5. say, i have bending irons at work and i can secure the bracket, while bending the shifter piece away. with shifter cable removed from the bracket, on-steering column shifter does not shift gears right anymore. so, that bracket should be bent back exactly into the same position for it to work. how do we assure this?

 

here's my question:

can someone who has, actually, DONE IT HIMSELF, be kind enough to explain this, before i mess up transmission, or bend bracket away, then try to bend it back, and it snaps in the process? as stamped metal brackets like this do not like re-bending. stress line right across that 90 degree bend. i broke enough metal bars to know better.

 

thank you.

[travisstorma]

I ran into this on my pickup. The 30min job ended up turning into a 2 hour job. I ended up removing the bolts. If you position yourself just right, you can get on the bolts, which are torx btw if I remember right, and loosen them up. It was a chore but after the first time it isn't that bad anymore.

[asepgrad98]

i too was able to use a torx driver to remove the bolts

[ukrkoz]

I ran into this on my pickup. The 30min job ended up turning into a 2 hour job. I ended up removing the bolts. If you position yourself just right, you can get on the bolts, which are torx btw if I remember right, and loosen them up. It was a chore but after the first time it isn't that bad anymore.

 

i guess, if i were to remove the driveshaft, i possibly could. i have BIG hands. i can barely slide fingers into the gap just to touch the bolt heads. yes, those are Torx, i have size. from my previous experience, there was no way for me to get to them with any tools.

 

is yours 4x4? beacuse if you don't have that driveshaft there, that's a different story. bracket side is open. mine is locked, it's about 1nch gap on the trannie side and about same between driveshaft and frame, so from either side i can't get to the bolt heads.

[rjirvine]

Dude, search my past posts, I posted a long diatribe on how I did this on my 2000 silverado. You have to remove the front driveshaft if it's 4 wheel drive, and take a big set of vice grips or a big crescent wrench and bend the bottom of the bracket towards the drivers side. Not too much, but enough to get the pan out of the way. My torx bolts were too corroded to get a torx bit on them and wouldn't have done crap with the limited space available.

[rjirvine]

Forgot to add, once you get the pan off, use a torch and heat up the drain bolt and use a 6 sided 15mm socket with a big wrench to hold the unit from the inside. You'll get the bolt out for future use. I never did get the "neck" gasket out, just put the new filter in.

[ukrkoz]

Dude, search my past posts, I posted a long diatribe on how I did this on my 2000 silverado. You have to remove the front driveshaft if it's 4 wheel drive, and take a big set of vice grips or a big crescent wrench and bend the bottom of the bracket towards the drivers side. Not too much, but enough to get the pan out of the way. My torx bolts were too corroded to get a torx bit on them and wouldn't have done crap with the limited space available.

 

ok. makes sense. that driveshaft is blocking everything.

so, where the gear shifter cable is sitting in the bracket, and bracket is bent at 90 degrees to the bracket itself, simply straighten that 90 degree bend. can do. i have bending irons at work, should work better than anything else, as i can stabilize the vertical part of the bracket with one iron and move the 90 degree elbow with another one, without risking breaking trannie case.

yes, that drain plug is NON-REMOVABLE. nothing, but nothing worked on it. it is, basically, rounded as of now. i have a new one waiting. as far as i can get damn pan off, i'll get that plug out one way or another.

 

thanks, RJ

 

next week project. i lost my steam for it for the day.

[ukrkoz]

yeah, i found a string of posts from various users on this.

 

one guy did not remove driveshaft:

Well last night I went out and bought and 'easy out' set and rented some kind of small seal puller that I'm going to try. I will let you guys know how that goes. I'll be quite happy if I can get the stripped bolt off and put this replacment on. Got underneath my buddies 2k2 Sierra yesterday and the shop that he took his to to get the filter changed and a flush stripped his as well. It really seems to be common place. I did not remove the front driveshaft but I thought about it. I just put a piece of leather around the driveshaft and then used a C clamp to draw that bracket all the way over to it. I then had to pull down the pan so I'm not sure how much trouble I'm going to run into when putting it back on.

 

http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/index.php?...c=51855&hl=

 

so, getting pan down is just half the problem. only one person managed to get the old filter seal out. the rest just went back to using old one.

 

there was some consensus on "take it to dealer next time". here, "fluid and filter" is $470.

 

also, i just had an idea. pan has a "lip" on it that is catching on the bracket. nothing will happen to have that lip removed just there. dremel sounds about right for the job. hmm, nothing will happen to have some of that bracket shaved down either.......

[rjirvine]

I was pretty pissed at the whole setup, a quick job turned into 2 days, cause it was raining in my driveway. I found out later on this forum that the bolt has a heat treated thread locker, therefore the torch to melt it. After you get the front driveshaft out and take the linkage out of the bracket, it's pretty easy. Would love to meet the SOB that invented that setup! Of course I got the wrong filter (can't remember if it was deep pan or shallow pan, but I got the wrong one). After I drained the fluid and changed the filter, i ran it for about 100 miles and pulled the bolt and drained the fluid and filled it back up again (no flush). Has been working great since then.

[superjim]

I was pretty pissed at the whole setup, a quick job turned into 2 days, cause it was raining in my driveway. I found out later on this forum that the bolt has a heat treated thread locker, therefore the torch to melt it. After you get the front driveshaft out and take the linkage out of the bracket, it's pretty easy. Would love to meet the SOB that invented that setup! Of course I got the wrong filter (can't remember if it was deep pan or shallow pan, but I got the wrong one). After I drained the fluid and changed the filter, i ran it for about 100 miles and pulled the bolt and drained the fluid and filled it back up again (no flush). Has been working great since then.

 

 

Good job.

Glad to see that you didn't let it beat you.

[ukrkoz]

only one guy out of all advisers knows how to do it right.

 

You will have unbolt the front of the exhaust from the exhaust manifolds too including removing the front driveshaft.I have been doing it this way and it worksThe metal u clip has to be removes to release the the two fingers and disconnect the shift cable from the arm.

 

wafrederick. thank you, friend.

 

so, here it goes:

1. donno about y'all's trucks, on mine, there's no way to get to the damn torx bolts even with driveshaft removed. maybe to one, but then the other one is completely covered by some connectors. so, yeah, if you did get to those and had them removed - what can i say...

2. thank you, dear GM, for using substandard metals on your brackets. that gear shifter bracket bends whichever way you want to, and with basic tools. it has to be bent in 2 directions: away from trannie and then, the L shaped bend in it - must be straightened. not completely, but about half way.

3. no, i did not remove driveshaft. i simply bent the bracket. then secured it to the driveshaft with tension wire loop, so it does not go back.

4. heat shield on the pass side must be loosened a lot, or pan will not come off.

5. that was all easy. after done with all this, and not even drenched in ATF, i hit the brick wall. and the wall has name. EXHAUST PIPE. it runs right underneath the rear edge of the pan. in that place, trannie has some sort of a gismo, that bulges all the way down into the pan. no way to slide pan past it - it hits the pipe.

6. i got away with loosening only pass side exhaust manifold nuts and removing muffler pipe off exhaust pipe. grabbed the pipe and put my all weight on it (265) - and that pan slid off.

 

if you must remove or drop driver side pipe, you'll have to remove O2 sensor first, as one of the bolts is blocked by it.

 

i had to drill drain plug out. it was dead stuck in the pan. yeah, heat my hiny, all it did was to burn the rubber seal inside the plug. anyhow, i went through about 5 drill bit sizes, slowly making center hole in the plug bigger, then hammered what was left from the plug into the drilled hole - took griptite socket to the head, and it let go.

 

took me 5 hrs. 1 hr went on exhaust only.

 

btw, if you want to replace filter without all the hassle - you will have enough opening without removing pan, to pull filter out and put new one in.

[rjirvine]

If the front driveshaft is out of the way, and you bend the bracket outboard and you can get the pan off. (at least on my 2000 silverado 4x4).

[Stylous]

"there was some consensus on "take it to dealer next time".

 

On my '02 4x4 it was a PITA as well. I didn't want to break anything so I took it to a shop as my temper was getting the best of me! I do wonder how the dealer does it though.

 

It's another one of those brilliant designs that were never field tested or designed with any common sense...sorta like the oil drain plug position!

 

I would love to line these engineers up and

[Black02Silverado]

Sounds like I'm in for some fun in the near future when I drop the pan on my 2002 Silverado 4x4. Good thing I have a garage and a second vehicle. That way if I run into issues I can take my time and it can get locked up inside the garage for days if need be. By chance does anyone know the size of the torx for that bracket?

 

I had issues with my drain plug and rounded it off. I went to Sears and got their Bolt out kit, basically a kit like easy outs but for stripped bolts. It worked like a charm.

[96chevy7.4L]

I now know I don't want to change the fluid in my dads 02 GMC. I have a 99 1 ton dually and my transmission pan is in the open and all the pan bolts come right out. I can change the filter and refill in about an hour sometimes a lil more. Not braggin but thanks for the heads up on what a PITA it is.