Flywheel housing gasket replacement

[Hammerhead]

Well my Rush is over, Christmas/New Years break is upon me and over, so the time has come to replace the flywheel housing gasket on ole yeller...
I cleaned up the shop and washed the truck & the shop floor so the tranny Jack would roll smoothly and help make the job as easy as possible. I backed the truck up onto some 5" blocks to make a lil more clearance so this fat bastard has room to work under it.

If you guys recall, I had previously said that "next time I have to work on the tranny or tranny cooler, I was gonna cut a hole in my floor and use a Peterbilt shifter plate to 'fill the hole' to make my life easier", well after I dropped the driveshaft and could look clearly above the tranny to make sure that I had the clearance to do so and not cut a cross member I saw a screw...then another, then another, then I realized that KW has an access panel in the floor! I'm a fuckin genius I tell ya, 9 years ago when I pulled the seats and the interior and installed hardwood floors in my truck, I wasn't smrt enough, yes I spelled that right, to ask "where does this access panel go and will it be needed in the future?" What a fuckin dipshit! So off to the truck wreckers I go and ask to get a panel out of a wreck. So I paid new price, because I needed a damn template, for a used panel that I'll never use...except to trace the panel so I can cut the hardwood for access! Have I mentioned how smrt I am? Oh yeah, I have another use for the used access panel, I gave it to the local metal fab shop to CAD up a nice SS "window" frame to hold the chunk of hardwood floor in place after I reinstall the access panel after the job...SMRT I tell ya!

   

I got the tranny out and dropped off at the tranny shop so they could go through it for me. I wanted to do it myself, but life interfered and I had something come up, so I had to be somewhere else for a few days. We popped the top and everything looked good inside, but I could see some wear on 17th & 18th gear as they are the most used gears, so I had them replaced. The syncro's and all bearings were also replaced, along with the air pressure governor, splitter valve, and range selector. Of course the clutch shaft bushings, clutch shafts, fork and clutch brake were also replaced.

I'm back now, so tomorrow I will pull the starter, flywheel, oilpan, jack up the back end of the motor, pull the motor mounts, and the flywheel housing to clean and prep for reassembly. I will of course be changing the rear main crank seal while I'm in here as well. I also have the front motor mounts and plan to change them while the pan is off and the tranny isn't hanging off the back end of the engine and the stress is as reduced as possible.
As per Mr Hagg, I will be applying a nice layer of anaerobic gel to the flywheel housing gasket to prevent leaking/prolong the seal as much as possible, cause this ain't a fun job!

After the engine part is all finished, I will spend a significant amount of time cleaning the underside of the cab and inside of the frame inaccessible when the tranny is in place. I will also be replacing any zip ties and loom that has heat fatigue, this allows a nice long time for the anaerobic gel to set up well before I begin reassembling everything. I plan to replace the starter leads while I'm in here as well as access is much easier with the tranny out.

...more pictures and posts to follow...I thought about making a video of this but lighting sucks under there while doing tranny removal, so it was a waste of time. Now that it's out of the way, I may try and film the flywheel removal to block and reinstallation, but because of the mess the leak has caused I'm not sure I really want to subject my camera to that shi#t...