003 Autobox drop and maintenance questions.

[orwell84]

Last spring I dropped my 003 automatic transmission to clean it up, change fluids, etc. I also used the opportunity to paint the underside of the bus, repair heater tubes, wiring...

I have had no issues with it. It has about 150,000 miles on it.

It was a crusty pig. I gave it a good cleaning and dropped the pans.

The ATF was bright red as it has been changed fairly recently. The differential fluid was a slightly darker red and has not been changed in the 30 years I have owned the bus and maybe never. Both were pretty clean. The red differential fluid made me wonder whether ATF was getting into it except that I have never had to top up ATF ever, the diff vent was dry and the transmission has always performed well. It does leak a little around the TQ seal, which I will be rplacing. I have no idea what color original diff fluid is supposed to be. I know it is usually green or some dark color these days.

I am wondering about the parking lock and if it can be tested with the transmission out of the car. With the gear selector in park, I can still spin the axle flanges. Are they supposed to lock when the parking lock is engaged. I'm wondering if I dislodged something because I tipped the transmission vertically, nose up to replace the pans. I made sure the pump shaft stayed in place.

I also have some issues with the flex plate. It has three metal rivets on one edge that interfere with a gallery plug. I think they are triggers for the tdc sensor. I would grind them down or remove them except that DPR machine did a race balance and I don't want to mess it up. I could also grind down the gallery plug a little. Any thoughts.

Lastly, I need to figure out a way to lock the flexplate for torquing the bolts. A piece of angle iron with a couple holes bolted to the flexplate would do it, but I'm worried that bolting it to the case would bend the flexplate. Anyone of a photo of a good setup for this.

As Always, thanks for the help.