Despite mostly good fortunes rebuilding this transmission, I hit a brick wall this afternoon. Got everything buttoned up and was a hop skip and jump from attempting to start the car, top off trans. fluid (already dropped a gallon in) and run the trans through the gears and such. The the last thing I did was to adjust the band. When I attempted to do this, it popped the retainer and cap off of the servo assembly. So, obviously I didn't have it fully compressed and the ring seated in its recess. Good grief. I guess it's good this occurred before running the car. Could have been much more messy. Ha. So, right off the bat, this seems to have disastrous consequences. I don't see how I can even attempt to compress the piston with the trans in the car. There may be some crazy way I can pull it off with the pan dropped and probably the valve body dropped. But I'm not even sure it can be done with the band and clutch drum in the way. Anybody more experienced than I am have any ideas or suggestions? If I have to drop the trans again, it may be yet another year before this car is running...
To follow up, I resolved this issue. If another knucklehead like me somewhere down the line pulls this stunt, fear not. It can be corrected with minimal effort. I compressed a shop rag into a compact ball and wedged it very tightly between the servo assembly cap and the transmission tunnel wall. There really is no alternative to this (wedge method), as use of a clamp is impossible. The rag miraculously provided sufficient compression of the cap (and piston), so that I was able to install the retention ring and carefully tap it into the recess in the trans housing using a small ball peen hammer and small round nosed chisel. Carefully, all the way around the cap and astonishingly, it worked. Popped out a couple times, but no biggie. Little challenging given the tight quarters. Set the band adjustment, topped off fluid and she's driving like a dream again. Even put a wash on her this evening. Felt pretty good after more than a year long absence from the road. Thanks for reading and happy motoring.
Yeah. One thing left out of all shop manuals is the requirement to add a sufficient amount of persistence, to many a task.
