Everything going pretty well. Last big thing was trans fluid. Again followed the mud threads on how to do it. I had the lines in a bucket from the cooler with marks to dump 3 quarts, then stop and fill until I had fresh fluid around 12 to 14 quarts pumped out.
Hit the starter and not a drop of atf. Wtf?
I unhooked lines all the way back to the transmission and still zero fluid flow, even revved up and pulling the throttle cable wide open. Not good.
I opened the drain to dump the 4 quarts in the pan and got brown stinky metallic nastyness in my oil catch pan. Way not good.
After laying on my shop floor in despair for a while, I decided to weigh options.
#1 take a chance and go because it was still running and shifting perfectly- no way
#2 get the 40 ready to roll and take it - a good idea but hadn't done any of the many maintenance items for the long drive or get the trailer ready to pull the gear
#3 swap transmissions
I had just been to my buddy's salvage yard to pick up the locker axles he pulled for me out of the only cruiser he had. Fortunately the transmission/t case assembly was laying on the ground when they picked the truck up because I had previously bought the engine and pulling the axles left the trans laying there. My buddy said I might as well take that too since I was the only one who bought parts off the truck anyway. Good deal, nice guy, and a spare for someday.
This made #3 a real possibility. I was on vacation, I had close to two days to spare (goof off time) so what the heck. I starting pulling stuff apart and went to my powder coat shop and looked at the spare trans. Kinda crusty but there. I did a quick hot power wash and pulled some redundant parts. Did a quick load up of the Toyota transmission with my Toyota forklift into my Toyota 100 series. Seemed appropriate. The transmission had around 200,000 on it and hadn't run in at least a dozen years but not looking this gift horse in the mouth.
Next morning I had the old trans ready to come out so I quick fabbed up a cart using snowmobile dollys, a tub I whipped up for hauling chainsaws, tools, and beer on my tractors 3 point, and some blocks. I ran the truck up on the hoist and set it down on the cart, unbolted, and lifted the truck up. My shop ceiling is low so it barely fit but it did.
Out with the old and in with the new (ish).