Phase I:
Well, plans being what they are, nothing worked out the way it was supposed to yesterday. First, the spindle wouldn't fit into the new pilot bearing that came with the kit (probably should have checked that before installing it). So I had to get another pilot bearing; which fit, but very tightly. So the second go around with putting the tranny up went better, but it was arduous as we wiggled and pulled to get it to go in.
We were slowly going around tightening up all the bolts on the transmission when I observed, "Oh, hey! That lower dust cover need to go in." Well… that dust cover appears to have to be installed between the flywheel and the engine. There is no way to do it otherwise! Not sure how I forgot that after disassembling everything, but here we are. So I pulled the tranny
again and will have another go at it today.
All was not failure though. One of my biggest gripes about pulling the transmission on a Trooper is that all the sensors use bullet connectors, which invariably pull off the wire every time you try to separate them.
So when I dove into this project I vowed to replace all those with weather pack connectors, and I did!
Find victories where you can!