I'm always impressed at how powerful this forum is. After my first posts I received a PM from a fellow board member asking if I wanted a drawing of his trans holding fixture. He also asked how close I was to Sharonville, Ohio. I immediately answered that I was only 20 miles away, and that I certainly would like to have the drawing. A couple of emails later, we were on the phone. He will be traveling from Pennsylvania to visit his son this weekend, and will be stopping by my house to see my project. He also will be giving me some components to make my trans holding fixture, and will be loaning me some of his other rebuild tools, to be returned to his son when I'm finished. I don't know what to say... I'd "turn him in" here, but I haven't gotten his approval.
This has caused me to move my project ahead because I want a second set of eyes to look at the guts. And so it begins...
I started off by taking 10 minutes to make my first tool, the lip seal installer. This is a 5" piece of 1/4" copper tubing with a .075" coat hangar crushed into one side and a .045" piece of solid wire crushed into the other. I also slightly crushed the wires themselves at the peak of the wire to thin them slightly, but ensured they had no sharp edge. There you have it -- a $30 tool.
Here is the patient. It's a Craigslist find. See initial post for specifics.
I know it probably doesn't matter, but I took a pic of the orientation of the seal retainer here. I've since removed the pump bolts and they are all the same length.