Well I had a good chuckle today. I went to a wholesale transmission parts house - you know the kind..... industrial side of town, make a wrong turn and you get a uncomfortable feeling, etc. I went straight from the office to the parts house. Of course walking in, all these ole boys were in the coverhauls, work uniforms, etc. I walk in with office attire. Upon entering the shop, the counter person asks if he can help me. I tell him, I need a seal protector kit for the Forward/Direct/Coast Piston on a CD4E. As he is looking it up one ole boy looks over at me and says, Do you rebuild transmissions? I smiled and said only when I have to! He looked at me and then said you don't look like no tranmission rebuilder to me!!!! I laughed and told him a man's gotta do what a man's gotta due when Ford wants to reach in my pocket at take at least $2000 to fix my tranmission. They all busted out laughing at that point. Actually this guy was there for a manual lever sensor for a CD4E on a Mazda 626. We started talking about rebuilding the CD4E. I asked him if he was able to assemble the piston assemblies with out the seal protector kit, he said no way. He had to pick one up also. We talked about endplay measurements, Reverse Clutch 2 hole lube alignment to drum - easy to miss and will cause clutch burnout. After our conversation he then asked very seriously about how long I have been rebuilding tranmissions. I told him the last tranmission I rebuilt was about 10 years ago. He shook his head and mumbled something about me doing my homework. The parts house was also telling me that in the past few months they have been having ALOT of parts being sold for the CD4E - gotta love FORD for this!
When I arrived home, I tried using the seal protector on the piston in the reverse drum assembly. Previously with me homemade tools, I spent a couple of hours trying to get this piston into the hub. With this protector it took me....let me see counting...... 30 seconds!!!!!!
Did a test assemble on the remaining pistons and it worked like a champ! 5 pieces of plastic which I paid a total of $122
The only other semi difficult assembly is the retainer springs. I have had to use c-clamps and a few strips of flat metal to compress the springs...patience here...nothing like the piston seals but it requires a little bit of patience.
I tried to purchase a VSS sensor, but when I looked at the sensor it did not include the gear. I thought they were sold as a unit? I didn't purchase it until I could verify.
