Well, my friend with the 96 Exploder Sport tried to impress a few of our friends on Tuesday, by doing a reverse burn out, on a washboard road. Fried the transmission, orriginally, we thought it was his rear. With the Haynes manual at hand, and my friend Steeve's garage, we started the job on Thanksgiving, and had the trans out by Saturday afternoon. It sounds like a long time, but We couldn't believe the amount of sh!t that had to be removed to get the trans down. 5 guys, 3 nights, and a lot of determination. I fell asleep on top of the motor Thrusday night, trying to get on of the bolts for the bell housing off, woke up and realized that it was 1:00 AM. Time to go home. The trans is out now, and he needs all 3 reverse gears, and we're trying to convince Doug, (w/ Exploder) to repalce the clutch while we are at it. When I'm more awake, I'll post the order to take out the transmission. Every one he's asked for help, basically laughed at him, and said leave it to the pros. Not us, we had a 3 Shadetree Mechanic, and John is in Automotive technology. Who's your Daddy?

i don't mean to burst your bubble but 3 nights to pull the trans? I have had too many explorers in the past and a sport has the OHV V6 4.0L. I can pull that trans out in just a few hours, drop the pipes coming off the manifold, driveshaft, crossmember, bellhousing bolts, computer harness, and it drops out. atleast from what i remember from pulling the one outta my 96. Anyway as i wanted to say, tell your friend to replace the clutch with a nice HD one and the slave cylinder while your at it. THe upgraded centerforce one i got for my truck was soo much nicer then the stock. Good luck with it man!
Pat

At least you saved your friend a BUNCH of money!

Hey guys you sound determined so let me help you out a bit. if you need I can send you a copy of the entire internal parts and how they go together or I will be more then happy to try and talk you threw it over the phone. I have built many of these trannys and I knwo a few things about them. One major thing to rember is that there are 2 syncho's rings, brass rings, on the reverse sycho. One of them has a slick side with almost no gripping rings on the inside and the other is regular with all the grip rings. Get them back where they came from or you'll have a good time getting it into 5th. Just PM me if you need my help. Later Doug904

Three nights later, Doug read the caption that says removing the exhaust would make the job a lot easier. We were dead tired, and pissed that he read that part after the fact. John wanted to pull the trans w/ the T-case, and shifter still in place. Leave it to Automotive Techs in training. We were trying it his way until I decided to start pulling the shifter and t-case off. We thought we had all the bolts, forgot the two holding the starter on, STUPID. Doug went to the Frod dealership today, and the cost to replace the three reverse gears is around $450. "Can't you park on a hill?" Now, to make things worse, the truck has to be out of the garage on Thursday. Oh well, what are you going to do?
Hey, leave the cross-eyed kid alone, this is my first Crash-Course in transmission work.