[alex sol]

so i broke off one of the two 'teeth' deep inside the transmission that the torque converter inserts into.

question is what do the teeth do? are they for alignment are are they eventually applying 500 ft lbs torque to the drive shaft?

[alex sol]

i suspect that the torque convert will not do it's job property with one broken tooth...

[alex sol]

looking at the input shaft of the transmission i can see there is a spline shaft that also goes into the torque converter

[alex sol]

here's the shot of the input shaft

[kbsilver]

These teeth drive the transmission oil pump called the front pump. The pump need to be running all the time, even if the car is not moving, to provide the oil pressure to operate the transmission. The spline shaft is what provides the power to the rear wheels thru the various clutches and gear sets. This shaft does not turn when the car is in gear but not moving.

I'll take a guess that with the tooth broken off, as long as it's not inside the transmission where it can get jammed, the car may run for a while. But the uneven forces on the pump will damage it pretty quickly.

Here is a video that explains how the pump works and you can see the teeth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKf_9UHwI08

[alex sol]

kbsilver thanks for the video and i will be picking up a used transmission due to breaking this and another part on the trans...

[alex sol]

watching a very helpful video of how the TC works...

[alex sol]

So i bought the transmission on Monday (four days ago) after starting tear down on Saturday. In about two and half hours, we got: hood off, wipers, drip tray, bumper skin, head lights, intake, latches, crash bar / bumper, intercooler, exhaust out. The car at this point was still running as i was tracking down a fuel leak. I think we found it so.... continued the tear down on Tuesday.

Another couple hours work and i had a/c condenser, rad, coolant lines, drive shaft/ tube, power steering, computer, fuel lines, intake manifold (wasn't planning to remove and had to due to the harness that supplies power and signal to the injectors is directly wired to the injectors / fuel rail) which turns out is a must so that the engine lift straps aka seat belts from wrecker don't put too much pressure on them.

[alex sol]

Once done, i pushed the D back out of my garage and sticking out about halfway. jacked up the front only and put down jack stands. previously, i had the car up on four jack stands to get under to remove exhaust, and separate the transmission tube. And almost a year ago, i straight piped the dpf so saved some time here.

backed off six 18mm bolts for subframe about 1/2", struggled with the coolant line that runs from overflow/ expansion coolant tank to egr cooler / transmission oil cooler so i cut off the band with dremel.

I've already dremelled off the two banks on the intercooler to throttle body rubber intake tube.

Proceeded to tie straps to the engine mounts and tried a trick that works really well. The engine wants to keel over to the driver's side so when i brought the seat belt up, i wound the belt around the engine hoist hook once and this ended up keeping the engine from tilting.

Another trick i used was to no remove the 13mm bolt that holds the engine mounts. And finally while i was removing the engine (by myself) i could easily get the passenger side engine mount off and it would to press down hard on the driver's side, so i stacked two short 2x4 pieces of wood between the oil pan and the front beam and lowered the motor, while lifting the transmission slightly from under the car to affect the amount of tilting. This cause the whole motor to rotate and got off the driver's side engine mount.
I continued to lift and pull back until i got stuck and needed a second hand which i was lucky and perfect timing. And by about 4pm Wed, (Christmas day motor pull) i had the motor sitting on a spare tire with a piece of 2x6 spanning the two legs of the engine hoist so that the motor could site nicely and distribute the weight evenly. I have a motorcycle jack with two pieces of 2x6 that i slipped under the transmission to support. Backed off the four engine pan bolts and then the four transmission bolts and two starter bolts.

[alex sol]

Next i split the transmission and tapped a deeper hole that holds the intake/output bracket that holds the lines to the transmission oil cooler. I had previously cracked the hole off when attempting to install the lines under the car and got a little impatient. I was able to tap in about 3/8" without making a hole right into the transmission. I would never do this normally though I had a spare transmission sitting right next to me. I used a 1/4" drill bit to cut into the soft metal and then tapped the m8x1.25 adding about four to five full turns.

Next i backed off the pump from the donor. To do this, you need to remove the trans oil pan, lift up the tab to remove the mechatronic sleeve, then remove the valve body.

Once you have the 15-20 torx27 bolts off from the pump, you use a lever on the clutch from space that the valve body once occupied and pop out the pump.

This video was very helpful.

And if you watch it, you'll see he's replacing a completely mashed gear that is mostly the point of this whole thread... what does the keyway do? It inserts in the 'gear' that is the pump and so when I saw this and figured these can turn to mash with two healthy teeth that the Torque converter spins, how easy to snap the one in my car that i broke off when i incorrectly attached the TC to the flywheel, then bolted the transmission not knowing it is the other way around. Which lots of help on this forum advised to remove the TC from the flywheel (flex plate? - i don't have all the terms but I hope you're getting it).

after swapping in the donor pump and reinstalling the transmission bits and new transmission pan/filter i reattached the trans to engine and slipped back into the engine bay.

It helped that the strap had not moved from it's position that was set during the removal and i used the similar method to drop the motor onto the passenger side first but putting two pieces of 2x4 wood between oil pan and driver's side front beam and allowing the engine to tilt onto the passenger side mount. once in, i started a couple threads and then lifted the engine again to remove the wood and jiggle the driver's side engine mount back in. added the transmission support, pushed the car back into garage and called it a night!