Today I got the van on jackstands again and tackled the governor seal, since
my last weeks exploration showed no ATF leaking out of hole between pinion
seals that drains to the rear of final drive pan.

Bail handle off, I tried to remove the gov cover but had to resort to the
use of a large vise grip (meant for welding I think) to get the cover off.
Governor slid out easily, looked clean.

Made a hooked screwdriver to try to extricate the old governor oil seal.
This proved to be very hard, came out in pieces. I did a post removal bit of
forensic re-assembly of the seal to convince myself that I had it all. I was
tempted at one point to screw a lag bolt into it to get a better purchase.
This was really hard to get out but I finally prevailed. I have a great
bruise on my right thumb knuckle from the seal eventually coming out, I
whacked the swing arm really hard. Good thing I had the sense to switch from
latex to motorcycle gloves at this point, I would have needed stitches. The
wear on the old seal (fragments) was very evident. The beveled facets
contacting the gov shaft were worn flat. As in from ^ to -.

Pushed the new seal in quite easily with a 3/8 socket extension (round end)
after carefully cleaning the governor passage from the inside out. The
o-ring around the cover was sort of stiff and square sectioned.

Topped of the ATF, drove around the block, still shifts up at 2800 rpm or
so. I presume that if I effed it up I wont know for a little while, seal
frag jamming a passage or valve in tranny. I suppose at some point I will
use my little transfer pump to remove the ATF that got in there over the
weeks commute, not terribly motivated to do it today.

The whole debacle can be seen at:

http://geocities.com/r3tr0v1ru5/index.htm

By the way, those guys make you really work for your 15Meg site. Best viewed
with firefox and adblock extension :)

Robert
90 MV