Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

Here's my write-up on swapping my transmission. It's mostly to help anyone else out who may have to do the samething someday. Huge shout-outs to Dennis Lambert and Rising Sun.. and google.ca.. lots of help and ideas everytime I asked.

So, backstory, our transmission started to eat itself shortly after we bought our van 4 years ago. Managed to get it fixed in Winnipeg, during Easter, at a reputable shop for a small mound of cash. About a year after we had it fixed we started to have difficulties getting into 2nd gear.. lots of grinding and very notchy. Revving up or double shifting helped but wasn't a sure bet for a smooth shift. We lived with it.. and were going to continue living with it until after my wife was finished school in Saskatoon.. we Dennis advertised he was selling one, and so we pounced on it. Good thing too! The drive from Thompson to Saskatoon (10hrs) pretty much put it over the edge. That last hour of driving I was sure it was going to just give up.

Anyway, got to Saskatoon and got to work. Grabbed some lumber to build cribs to lift it high enough to get the transmission out. I built them about 10in high and that gave me a fair amount of room. I also hate being under anything that's just on jackstands..especially at the height I needed to get it up to. Bought a transmission lift .. at first I cried over the price but after this project I sure am happy I bought it. Made life WAY easier than the last time I swapped a tranny.

Start off by disconnecting all the control cables (4 of them), grounds (2-both on the right side, one up front near the bell housing and one at the rear), clutch slave actuator, wires (all of them are back around the transfer case) and speedo cable(right at the front of the driveshaft, on its left side). Next, go and take off any clothes that you want to keep and throw on something you've borrowed or stole. Ok.. take off the 4 nuts and bolts for the front drive shaft. Once they're off you can wiggle that end forward past the crossmember and that shaft will slide out of transfer case. Luckily I had a bucket nearby because once you pull that shaft out ALL the diff oil comes out! Hence wear crappy clothes for that part. Do the same for the rear shaft too. I did have pictures of all that preliminary stuff, but they didn't turn out very well so they've been turfed.
You can see my wheel crib in this pic. And you can see how I positioned the lift.. most of the tranny weight is in the transfer case so I tried to get as far back as possible while giving it as much stability as I could too. Ratchet strap for safety. Jack it up so it's holding the weight of the transmission.. but don't go too high.
With the weight on the jack, time to take the rear supports off. And a note here.. the PDF file for the L300 transmission that's on this forum is for a completely different transmission.. even though it says its for a 4D5. It must be for a Pajero or someting even stranger.

Attack the bolts on the bell housing. Can't remember how many there were, but they were pretty easy to get to overall and none were seized. There's also a dust shield on the front of the transmission that hides part of the flywheel. Take that off too.

Now wiggle and adjust the jack.. wiggle and adjust.. etc etc and finally you start to back it away from the engine. It's tight under there, so you have to lower slowly then move it back, and again and again and then you're gas tank is in the way. Eventually you figure out what works and Bingo!..
..you have yourself and new boat anchor!
Lots of oil in there.. I suspected I had a rear crankshaft leak. Luckily I had already bought those parts. You can also see that the shaft is kinda.. hanging there. It had about 10 deg of play when I wiggled it around. Not good.
Looking in through the pressure plate. I don't think the pilot bearing is supposed to be sideways..
Off comes the pressure plate.

So pressure plate comes off and..
Here's all that's left of my pilot bearing. Wow. In some ways I'm impressed with this transmission.. it must've been like this way for awhile.. notice how rusty it is? Testament to how strong this thing is.. to be driving for a few years with, basically, no pilot bearing and a input shaft with a huge amount of play in it.
Off comes the flywheel
Definitely that seal is gone.. oil everywhere. To change that out you need to..
..remove the damn oil pan. That wasn't super fun.. I had to cut into the gasket as much as possible before I even tried to pry it off. I used a paint scrapper (2 actually.. broke one) and tried to get all the way around the pan. The maintenance PDF shows a special tool to use.. but the guys at NAPA and Princess Auto just looked at me like I was speaking Russian. I can find the tool on Amazon.. but that didn't really help me.
Off comes the seal.. cleaned up the old gasket left behind on the block and then put on the new one.
New seal and re-painted oil pan. Absolutely zero fun getting that oil pan back on with out getting sticky gasket everywhere!
Re-done flywheel with a new pilot bearing tapped in, and new clutch back on (no pics of either of those).. new pressure plate on while using the special pilot bearing tool to center the clutch.

Once everything is torqued down to spec.. time to get that tranny back on. Basically reverse the earlier steps. If I had to do it over again (hopefully no time soon) I would do it all from the right hand side.. there's more wiggle room on that side.

Overall, not a bad job. If I can do it pretty much anyone can.

Not too sure what to do with the old transmission... I may keep it then take it apart as a summer project at work. Find all the bearings and synchros and re-build it. Might be fun.