Remove C4 Transmission Bell Housing

[gregski]

Do I need to drain the transmission fluid in order to remove the bell housing from my C4 automatic transmission?

I already removed the six bolts and separated the bell housing from the engine. I assumed that it would be dry similar to removing the clutch from a manual transmission. No fluid spilled out so I believe I was right.

Now I need to remove the seven bolts on the inside of the bell housing aka "Lester" and remove it from the transmission itself.

help / explanation much appreciated

 

[brianj5600]

Try to make sure the pump, which is the cast iron piece behind the bell, from coming out. You may need a dead blow or rubber mallet to unstick the bell. Some people tighten the front band down to make sure nothing gets out of place. Leaving the input shaft in might help too.

 

[gregski]

Well aggregating feedback from a couple forums, I get the following:

1. Yes fluid will dispense out when the bell housing is removed from the rest of the transmission.

2. No fluid will not pour out when you remove the bell housing.

What to do, what to do? Well with a cheater bar in one hand and PB spray in the other I brased myself for Armageddon.

 

[96 DOHC Cobra]

Why would removing the bellhousing cause a fluid loss? There's no fluid between the bellhousing and the front pump.

 

[gregski]

... well that turned out to be anti climactic, after removing the 7 internal bolts and some gentle persuasion using the rubber malet the bell housing was off, and no spilage to speak of. Rather disapointnig if you ask me, so I decided to sprinkle some transmission fluid on my jeans from the torque converter, for good measue.

The bell housing is very light if I had to guess I would say it weighs no more than nothing and a half pounds, lol. Which begs the question why would Ford make that out of aluminininium and not other parts, oh like the friggen cylinder heads, aka the most important component of the entire engine.

[RANT]
Speaking of Ford engineers, I found the part number on the bell housing, that's right if you don't want me to find it you're gonna have to hide it in a better place than the butt rim of the thing which butts up against the transfer case, christ what were you guys thinking... let's see how can we make this more difficult, we know, let's make sure the tranny is completely apart before any of the part numbers are visible.
[/RANT]

Surprisingly what remains of the transmission, ie the transfer case is no bigger than your thigh. No wonder swaps for the more robust TREMEC (or as I like to call it the T-Rex) T5 manual tranny are a common place.

Speaking of swaps, is the bell housing interchangeable between the C4 and the T5 or is parts not parts in this case?

[serving up the bait]
Hey Greg we have a question for you, what the he11 are you taking that apart for anyways?

what kind of post would this be if I didn't invite you to view a web page dedicated to this topic Small Block Ford 302 V8