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Forum Poster Amaezing wrote up a very nice removal procedure that is below. I'm about to do this job myself and wonder if there are any Members that have done this job before and would edit, add to the below. I will be using my Harbor Freight engine support bar to keep the rear of the engine supported. Is there anything I have to do on the inside of the car other than gear shift lever knob-halves removed?
Disconnect battery, you have to take starter off and you don't want it arcing.
Disconnect kickdown cable. As you look at the linkages at the rear passenger side of the motor under the fuel rail there are two cables going to the linkage. The lower one is the kickdown cable. Pop off the retainer clip and slide the pin out. Be patient with the clip, it's in a bad place and very easy to drop and spend an hour trying to find it. Remove the two bolts on the bracket. Need a 7/16 socket with a swivel head for this.
Jack the car up and put on blocks/stands as high as your jack will go. you need alot of clearance to get the tranny out. Loosen the compression fitting (fill tube) at the bottom of the trans pan and drain the fluid. I recommend taking the whole fill tube off so it doesn't get damaged but not necessary.
Take bolts out of the transmission to the motor block. There are a bunch of them, and they are 9/16, 15mm, and 14 mm. Two of which hold the starter on, it won't fall but you can prop it up out of the way on its own. On the sides there are two brackets (not sure of their use) that you need to remove from the trans also. They are triangular and some type of gusset, but they get in your way if you don't remove them.
Take the shifter linkage bolt off and wiggle the linkage off, I think it was a 12mm. then take the screw out that is going thru the black plastic housing of the reverse and neutral safety switch. Wiggle it off as well and if you reach around the other side of the tranny you’ll feel the wiring harness and you can disconnect the plug for the switch and get it out of your way or leave it there and not worry about pulling on it when you drop the trans. While you are there take the cooler lines loose with a 9/16 wrench.
Heat shields, there are three that need removed. A small one that is in front and half of it goes up the firewall, it's sort of connected to a long one that runs along the frame about 2 feet long. the third is around the driveline, it's a bit tricky getting it around the driveline but it is possible. All of these are Phillips head screws. there is also an inspection plate on the front bottom of the trans that is held by 11mm bolts.
On passenger side of trans there is a rubber hose with hose clamps; loosen one of them and slide the hose off. Be CAREFUL, this is connected to a now very brittle piece of plastic that can break very easily.
Next is the trans mount and driveline bolts. Here you need a second jack under the trans to hold it up. There is a thin metal plate that has a few 13mm bolts on the bottom and two hard to see bolts up in the driveline tunnel. You have to go around the driveline from opposite side to remove (twice). Now that that’s out of the way, you go to the actual mount. big thing. I remove the 19mm nut in the middle first, and then the two 15mm bolts that holt the triangle looking bracket to the tranny. These are a bit fiddely, you can only turn them a very tiny bit flip the wrench, over and over and over and over. Be patient, they do come off eventually. Now you can take the rest of the trans mount off of the body and out of your way with a 9/16 I think. It will come off in a bunch of pieces so pay attention to the order they all come off so you can reassemble later.
With all that out of your way, you have easy access to the driveline bolts. Two 9/16 wrenches get them off easy enough. Compress the driveline however much it will (about 1/2 an inch) and put it on top of the output shaft so it will be out of your way. You can prop it up with a board somehow if you want also, just be sure it's not in your way.
Now you are ready to drop the tranny. If you slide it back an inch or so, you can get to the torque converter bolts that go thru the flywheel. I left mine on for now, but if you do take these off, the tranny drops out way easier. Let jack down a little bit, push the cooler lines up and over a chunk of the tranny so you don't pull them and distort them when you drop tranny next. Repeat lowering jack and sliding trans back toward rear of car until it's on the ground.
Hopefully you have the car up high enough to get it slid out, and there you go. Now you have a greasy mess to clean up and start the next phase of your project.
I hope This helps someone with what to expect and I hope I described it well enough. This whole process took me just under two hours and is actually quite easy.
I will post rebuilding in a couple days.
You may have to slacken the exhaust off as well, either at the manifold joint, or there may be a flange near trans. When you have angled motor and trans downward, the bell housing bolts are reasonably easy to access, slacken them off and use a rattle gun if available. When replacing torque converter onto trans, it needs to slot in THREE times, otherwise the first time you start the motor it will break the drive tangs of the converter and destroy your front pump; found that out the hard way.
Only thing I would add is make sure car is in neutral so you can spin driveshaft to to access all the bolts, Trans is cable shifted, shouldn’t need to do anything to shifter Inside .. ( if I recall correctly that is) Been a while since i pulled mine without engine!
I neglected to mention that I will also be removing the flex plate and checking on the preverbal loose rivets. And... replacing the rear main seal on the engine block. Any helpful hints on either of them?
I don't think the rear main seal on a Series II XJ sedan is going to be easy with the engine in the car.
Original seal is a two piece assy.(aka rope-seal)
Bob - I highly respect your opinion; you DO know what you are talking about. Is it impossible, or just super difficult? Any tricks to doing it (like the pan has to get pulled off - which I'm NOT doing). Can the lower one be "snaked" out? And a new one installed?
The rear main crankshaft seal cannot be replaced with the engine in the car as it is a rope seal which requires the crankshaft to be removed from the engine block.
I am familiar with the rope seals used in early American engines, but the British Jag method is quite different. It can't be 'snaked out".
I have rebuilt or overhauled a number of these XK engines and believe I know what I am talking about.
If you have a workshop manual have a look at the section relating to the engine rebuild and installing new crankshaft seals by "sizeing"
I did something similar on my XJS. Do you have a transmission jack? IMO if you're doing this job solo it's going to be worth the price. Even if you have someone to help you it's going to be beneficial.
Make sure you have lots of extensions for your ratchet wrench. I think I used almost 3' of extensions to get all the bell housing bolts.
I do indeed have a transmission jack. I won't be able to count on outside help though. And yes, as you can see in pic - I have 55" worth of extensions. And I have a set of swivel socket set I bought anticipating this job.
Forum Poster Amaezing wrote up a very nice removal procedure that is below. I'm about to do this job myself and wonder if there are any Members that have done this job before and would edit, add to the below. I will be using my Harbor Freight engine support bar to keep the rear of the engine supported. Is there anything I have to do on the inside of the car other than gear shift lever knob-halves removed?
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Disconnect battery, you have to take starter off and you don't want it arcing.
Disconnect kickdown cable. As you look at the linkages at the rear passenger side of the motor under the fuel rail there are two cables going to the linkage. The lower one is the kickdown cable. Pop off the retainer clip and slide the pin out. Be patient with the clip, it's in a bad place and very easy to drop and spend an hour trying to find it. Remove the two bolts on the bracket. Need a 7/16 socket with a swivel head for this.
Jack the car up and put on blocks/stands as high as your jack will go. you need alot of clearance to get the tranny out. Loosen the compression fitting (fill tube) at the bottom of the trans pan and drain the fluid. I recommend taking the whole fill tube off so it doesn't get damaged but not necessary.
Take bolts out of the transmission to the motor block. There are a bunch of them, and they are 9/16, 15mm, and 14 mm. Two of which hold the starter on, it won't fall but you can prop it up out of the way on its own. On the sides there are two brackets (not sure of their use) that you need to remove from the trans also. They are triangular and some type of gusset, but they get in your way if you don't remove them.
Take the shifter linkage bolt off and wiggle the linkage off, I think it was a 12mm. then take the screw out that is going thru the black plastic housing of the reverse and neutral safety switch. Wiggle it off as well and if you reach around the other side of the tranny you’ll feel the wiring harness and you can disconnect the plug for the switch and get it out of your way or leave it there and not worry about pulling on it when you drop the trans. While you are there take the cooler lines loose with a 9/16 wrench.
Heat shields, there are three that need removed. A small one that is in front and half of it goes up the firewall, it's sort of connected to a long one that runs along the frame about 2 feet long. the third is around the driveline, it's a bit tricky getting it around the driveline but it is possible. All of these are Phillips head screws. there is also an inspection plate on the front bottom of the trans that is held by 11mm bolts.
On passenger side of trans there is a rubber hose with hose clamps; loosen one of them and slide the hose off. Be CAREFUL, this is connected to a now very brittle piece of plastic that can break very easily.
Next is the trans mount and driveline bolts. Here you need a second jack under the trans to hold it up. There is a thin metal plate that has a few 13mm bolts on the bottom and two hard to see bolts up in the driveline tunnel. You have to go around the driveline from opposite side to remove (twice). Now that that’s out of the way, you go to the actual mount. big thing. I remove the 19mm nut in the middle first, and then the two 15mm bolts that holt the triangle looking bracket to the tranny. These are a bit fiddely, you can only turn them a very tiny bit flip the wrench, over and over and over and over. Be patient, they do come off eventually. Now you can take the rest of the trans mount off of the body and out of your way with a 9/16 I think. It will come off in a bunch of pieces so pay attention to the order they all come off so you can reassemble later.
With all that out of your way, you have easy access to the driveline bolts. Two 9/16 wrenches get them off easy enough. Compress the driveline however much it will (about 1/2 an inch) and put it on top of the output shaft so it will be out of your way. You can prop it up with a board somehow if you want also, just be sure it's not in your way.
Now you are ready to drop the tranny. If you slide it back an inch or so, you can get to the torque converter bolts that go thru the flywheel. I left mine on for now, but if you do take these off, the tranny drops out way easier. Let jack down a little bit, push the cooler lines up and over a chunk of the tranny so you don't pull them and distort them when you drop tranny next. Repeat lowering jack and sliding trans back toward rear of car until it's on the ground.
Hopefully you have the car up high enough to get it slid out, and there you go. Now you have a greasy mess to clean up and start the next phase of your project.
I hope This helps someone with what to expect and I hope I described it well enough. This whole process took me just under two hours and is actually quite easy.
I will post rebuilding in a couple days.
You may have to slacken the exhaust off as well, either at the manifold joint, or there may be a flange near trans. When you have angled motor and trans downward, the bell housing bolts are reasonably easy to access, slacken them off and use a rattle gun if available. When replacing torque converter onto trans, it needs to slot in THREE times, otherwise the first time you start the motor it will break the drive tangs of the converter and destroy your front pump; found that out the hard way.
Thanks for sharing this info with us. I appreciate you.
So... I have begun the job of removing my BW66 transmission out of my '75 XJ6C. Everything going fairly smoothly until I got to the top six 9/16" threaded into the block bolts. I see THORSEN recommended lots of length extensions. I don't seem to be able to access these bolts from the bottom or top enough to get any kind of purchase on them. How do these extensions solve that problem? I have not yet put the transmission jack under the transmission to support it. And I have not removed any of the rear transmission supports or the drive shaft. Once I do that, are the upper transmission threaded bolts more accessible via extensions and wobble sockets if I lower the transmission a bit for the whole assembly to be angled a bit? From under the car?
I found that it was important to lower the rear of the transmission to give enough room to snake the extensions/socket to the bell housing bolts.
I also used a cordless impact wrench to break the bolts loose.
About 35 years ago I had to replace the torque converter drive plate in a 4.2 Series III XJ6 due to 'loose-rivets' that rattled.(sorta common fault)
I spent 3 or four hours to get the job done and told the boss I was almost done. The job paid about 5 hours but I had done this MANY times so I could do it in less.
He called the customer and was told that he would be picking up the car a little after 5 PM.
I was done a little before 4 PM but when I hit the starter, it just 'WHIRRRRRED'. I tried over and over then realized I had installed the torque converter drive plate BACKWARDS!!!!!!!!! The starter drive teeth were not aligned because the ring gear was on the wrong side of the plate.
Panic!!!!!!!!!!
I had all the tools still laid out so I started attacking the gearbox like a madman.
Back out, flip the plate and start back in!!!!!!!!
So... using the multiple 3/8" extensions with the 9/16" wobble socket and a long breaker bar I was able to lower the engine/transmission enough to access and remove the 5 upper 9/16" bolts out of the transmission to block. Whew! What a job! And, was finally able to remove the transmission. Tough job for a 76yo wrench turner! To my surprise one of the tangs on the torque converter was broken. Lucky I had the foresight to have a rebuilt one to install. Now I have the Flex Plate ready to remove to bash at the rivets. Can I assume these are the pics of the rivets? Backside of FlexPlate Front Side of Flex Plate Broken Tang on Torque Converter Rebuilt Torque Converter
Not sure if you have considered this but i would most definitely replace the seal on the input to the transmission, i did not after an engine rebuild and wouldn't you know it transmission fluid stared leaking past the seal after a few thousand miles.
I have just finished replacing my BW66 transmission. Not had a road test yet as I still need to do the ATF pressure test but finally got it all back together just now.
My old transmission developed a worrying noise on pulling away which sounded a bit like a turbine noise. I had thought it might be the torque converter so sent that to a specialist for checking and it was fine. So the gearbox was examined and the primary pump found to have damage.
I had a spare gearbox which was a better option to rebuild, so that was done last week.
Anyway, the reason I am adding to this thread is to mention that I bought a motorcycle scissor jack to use when removing and replacing the gearbox. It was absolutely ideal as the sump of the gearbox sits perfectly on it and the range of travel is more than adequate.
BW65/66 Transmission Removal wo Removing Engine
