got a lot done last night. put the 80 up on the lift yesterday morning. drained the trans and and dropped the pan. let it drip for a few hours while i sent a couple of customer cars home. finally got back to the 80 around 1730.
first operation in the trans was to replace the throttle cable. or kick down cable. or, as i now like to call it, so THIS is what this truck is supposed to drive like cable?!?! yes, it's as bitchy a project as you've heard, but so worth it. disco-ing it at the valve body is easy, it's getting the bolt out of the trans, and then back in that sucks. good thing my wife has small hands and is a seasoned subaru tech.
she shoved both arms up in there and had the bolt started in moments. all i could do to help her was hold the flashlight and try to catch the drops of dex III before they landed on her face. my wife rocks.
anywho, got the cable in, gave it an adjust, and moved to the next phase of operation open trans pan. solenoids. shift 1 and shift 2. two short bolts, two wire pigtails, several oz of atf in my hair, done. for the record, these are the two middle ones.
slapped a fresh filter on and prepped the pan for reinstall. this consisted of removing the pan from the parts washer, removing the old sealant, another couple minutes in the washer, a final wipe down of the pan and magnets, cleaning up the mounting flange on the trans, some right stuff rtv, then strapping it back in.
while the rtv cured up a bit, i moved on to the fun portion of the evenings event. slee coil spring spacers front and rear, as well as a new set of OME shocks to replace the (most likely original to the truck) tokico's.
most of you have done lifts and such, so that pretty much went as you'd expect. spring compressors and cussing. but also worth it. i liked the soft riding sagged out springs. i got the spacers to make up for the tiredness. i got the shocks because my wife said i don't care if you spend 200$ or 400$ on them, just get the ones you want. did i mention that my wife is awesome yet?
well, come to find out, whatever i did turned out to be a magic combo for me. the ride with the space'd up stock springs and the new shocks is pretty good. some of it could be the fact that i'm not on the bumps stops any more...
net result for about 6 hours of work, lots of smiles so far. the next two days i also get to fix my wrx. it's been in the garage at the house for the last 5 months with a blown up center differential. since i don't have time to rebuild the 6mt i have for it, i snagged a jdm legacy turbo trans for it to throw in for now. 4.11 final drive... yum! just for fun i'm throwing on a set of brembo brakes and some other goodies that have been waiting.
thanks to my wife for making the impossible bolt possible, cruiseroutfitters for the spacers and shocks(and axle kit and birfs) and thanks to onur for getting me a new kick down cable in time to do this.
be safe this crazy holiday season.
--r
(text edited because spell check)