Mustang AOD Removal step by step

Mustang AOD Removal step by step.

Use the information at your own risk. There is no claim to accuracy.

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Mustang AOD Removal

Step by Step

AOD Transmission Removal from a 91 Mustang convertible

To begin with what we will need to do is grab a nice assortment of sockets, I prefer deep sockets and make sure that you have standard and metric. Most of the bolts/nuts will be metric.

Drain Tranny Fluid: Remove all the bolts but one on the front of the transmission pan and let it all drain into a catch pan of some sort. Make sure you bring out the biggest thing you have and then some most likely. This is a messy job! Next put a bolt in the back of the tranny pan and remove the front bolt. Now remove the bolt and grab hold of it and slowly bring it down and pour the rest of the fluid into the pan. Reattach the pan with all bolts onto the transmission again.

Side note - Now would be a good time to check out the things on the inside of the pan. See if you notice the tranny fluid is burnt or if you notice clutch pack material, maybe silver in the fluid from metal?

Driveshaft Removal: Remove the 4 bolts at the rear of the driveshaft bolted to the rearend and then tap it off with a hammer if it's stuck. From there pull the driveshaft towards the rear of the vehicle to remove it from the tranny, make sure you have something to catch any fluid that comes out of the tail housing.

Starter Removal: Remove the 2 bolts that hold the starter in and remove the nut attaching the wire and toss the starter off to the side.

Torque converter bolts: At the front of the bellhousing bottom half is a small thin metal plate. If I recall correctly it is held in by 2 bolts. Remove these bolts and slide the plate out. From here you will be looking for 4 nuts and there will be a bolt in there. These things will be coming through the flywheel. This is the torque converter. What you need to do is remove the nuts one at a time. You will have to have someone turn and hold the engine. Have them turn it over by attaching a ratchet to the crankshaft pulley bolt and have them turn the engine from here also, to expose the other 3 nuts. Once all 4 nuts are removed then you are done here.

Speedo gear removal: On the driveside of the tranny on the bottom section of the tail housing there will be a cable running into the tranny held by a bracket attached with a bolt. Remove the bolt and wiggle the Speedometer gear out of there and put it out of the way.

Linkage Removal: First we begin with the shifter cable removal. There will be a rather large bracket attached to the driver side of the transmission that is held on by 2 bolts. Remove these two bolts and yank the bracket away from the transmission. From here follow the cable to where it attaches to the transmission and remove the nut holding it and yank the cable right off and set it out of the way. The other linkage piece would be the kickdown linkage. Where it is mounted on the tranny just remove that nut also and pry it directly away from the transmission. Follow it up a little ways to a bracket its attached to on the tranny and remove the bolt there and get this thing outa the way also!

Transmission mount: Remove the 2 nuts on the bottom of the transmission crossmember that are holding the tranny to it. These nuts are for the transmission mount.

This should have us mostly done with the driverside pieces and the like so what we do now is get a jack out.

Crossmember removal: Place the jack under the crossmember and get it so it is holding the rear of the transmission up. From here you will need a socket on the bolt on the back of the crossmember and a wrench for the front part. There are 2 bolts. One on each side. Get the nuts off of them and then tap them out with a hammer and pull with pliers if needed. Slowly lower the jack down and once low enough remove the crossmember and set it out of the way.

Bellhousing removal: You need to have something underneath the transmission to support it. Just have it barely jacked up to it just so they are making contact. You can use a jack with a block of wood or a tranny jack here. Move to the passengerside and remove the bolt holding the dipstick tube to the block. Once it's out yank the dipstick tube out of the transmission and set it to the side. Next you will need a nice set of extensions. What you should start out with is loosening all of the bellhousing bolts. I recall 2 on top, 2 on the right and 2 on the left side. Get these all loosened then start from the bottom and work your way up removing the bolts completely.

After these bolts are removed now is a good time to take a break or get ready for a little bit of harder work than what you have been doing. Friends can be helpful

Put a jack with a block of wood or something underneath the rear of the oil pan to support the engine and grab a crowbar.

Tranny removal: Take that crowbar and put it between the rear of the oil pan and the bellhousing and pry those 2 suckers apart! It may take a bit but once you get it right the things will just rip apart. From there it's a matter of finessing your tranny back and down.. Slowly do minor adjustments... Lower a bit here and then backup some then lower again and back up more etc. Make sure you have your car jacked up quite high so that the damned bellhousing clears b/c it is QUITE large. The bellhousing its 16 and a half inches tall. I had all 4 corners of the car up in the air for this project.

Once removed then its a good time to clean up that mess of tranny fluid you spilled, put the dipstick tube back in. MAKE SURE YOU BAGGED AND LABELED ALL BOLTS! and if you want you can lower your car back down for now or leave it in the air if it's a never ending project like mine. Hope this helped clear up questions to this small project. I hope I didn't forget anything either! I did multiple searches and asked many times on how to get the tranny out and no one seemed to know so now there is finally a tech thread for people to use in reference. Good luck!

Sean

Mustang Brake Information Home page: http://www.veryuseful.com/mustang/tech/brakes/