I recently took my transmission to a local sandblasting place to get the front bell housing sandblasted and I think some sand might have gotten into the transmission. Is this possible? The only part they sandblasted was the front bell housing which was still attached to the rest of the transmission. But Everything else was covered. The way I figured out that there might be sand in there is because when I move the shaft by hand it sounds as if there is sand playing around as it spins, easy to spin too. The only place where I can think of it going through is from inside the housing behind the throw out bearing there is a plate which I had removed the bolts from but not the actual plate itself. I really dont know but my questions are, is there a proper way to clean out the transmission without taking it apart? And also, The plate inside the bellhousing between the housing and the throw out bearing,does that have a gasket or does it just bolt on? Sorry for the long story, I just wanted to have all the details for you guys to understand and maybe help me out

Thanks in advance to all

Saro Fagerian

Pull the plate, there is a paper gasket. If you don't clean that area out sand will be eating up your front seal.

Thanks Lance for the reply. So it is possible that the sand went in from or arund the plate area? Any special way in removing the plate? Because I remeber that I had taken all the bolts out from it and had a hard time trying to get it out. It wouldn't budge. Also, any methods on how to flush out the transmission to clean it out?

Thanks again.

Saro Fagerian

Ok this is just from memory and I don't have a tranny around to look at but if I remember right the front plate has an extension that covers a portion of the input shaft, take all of the bolts out and give it a wack with something sideways a bit and it should pull off. I believe the grease seal (rubber type) is in this front plate, behind it is your input shaft bearing. I think sand is in the tube type housing that is around the input shaft, so pull it off carefully and clean it and the shaft well, keeping the sand from getting the input shaft bearing since it has an open style race. When everything is clean put a little lube on the rubber seal and some sealant on the gasket (I prefer Permatex #2 to the blue goo stuff) and bolt it back together. Since the tranny lube isn't under pressure and is pretty thick you shouldn't have to buy a replacement gasket unless you want to. That should be all of the sand that I would think is in the tranny and even that isn't really "in" it yet.

Thanks again Lance. That's the only thing in my way of installing my complete drivetrain and getting this thing back on the road. I'll keep you posted. Cant wait.

Saro Fagerian