today got my heavy duty puller. put it on the tranny, it's very easy to pull off the bearings, no hard force is needed at all.
but the disassembly process turned out to be a lot of hassle for me, due to a single reason: I dropped the counter shaft first, hoping to get more clearance to get the
input and output shafts out. but the end of the counter shaft had 2 spacer metal thin rings. once the shaft drops, it got stuck and lodged firmly between the 2 walls of the chassis. then a bigger issue ensued ......: the counter shaft got into the way of the reverse idler, so the idler is stuck at the wall side, and the reverse fork arm can't move, so the fork stands in the way of the huge output shaft, and can't be moved out!
then for a time I almost was tempted to grind off the fork , in order to get the output shaft assembly out. but then I decided to just disassemble the output shaft assembly in-place, in the chassis. luckily the lock ring pliers I got were really doing a great job, and with some careful nudge, I was able to pull off all the gears and synchro rings off. then it's easy to get the shaft itself out.
I got the advice from elsewhere (
http://www.fordmuscleforums.com/transmi ... ement.html) that by dropping the counter shaft, the input shaft assembly (with bearing already pressed on), can be slided in , but now this looks like a serious problem, I'll have to test it out.
basically when I get to the installation step, I plan to have several options for the bearing install: 1) hot expansion first , then slide on, I don't know if the outer race will also expand and cause friction against the chassic hole , need to test out. 2) use a thick pipe (about 2" diameter) to fit onto the inner race, and tap on pipe to press the bearing on. doing this while shaft is set in chassis . 3) doing the same tapping, but out of chassis, then try to maneuver the bearing+shaft assembly into the chassis later.
