for the last few months i have been refreshing the 4.6 and 4r70 in my 2wd stx. originally i was just trying to repair a persistent pass side leak and do spark plug thread upgrades, but after removing the head it turned out to be cracked, so i ended up buying new heads from ford. they already had the good threads.

also the trans had been throwing codes so i had it rebuilt. just got it all back up and running yesterday so i figured i'd share some pics.

 

Impressive.

Did you R&R the transmission yourself?

 

thx yeah i do all this stuff myself on my back, no power tools. but it's just a hobby so i really take my time. my goal is to someday get a lift... that'd be nice. lol

this transmission was much heavier than anything i ever worked on before, so to reinstall i rented the 1200 lb transmission jack you can see in one of the pics. i just rented it for a day to stab it back in because i didn't trust the small harbor freight tranny jack that i dropped it down with. it was very precarious. it's great for the small t-56 manual transmissions i have in my mustangs, but not for this. also getting the vehicle high enough for the bellhousing to clear the framerails was a challenge.

one nice thing i wasn't expecting was not having to remove the hood to pull the engine. working on it by myself that really saved me a hassle, because everything i have seen or read beforehand said you had to pull the hood.

 

referenced this thread in another post so i figured i would just give an update, since it's been about a year...

i think i've only put about 10k miles on it so far, but i feel like this has to be the best money i spent because this truck is running phenomenally... so much better than before, and i've been really loving driving it.

soon after i got it running last year, i flushed out the brake system and also replaced the 8.8 gear lube. i think the only other item that i might want to do is the fuel pump, since now it's got 147k. then, honestly i feel confident that this truck might last me another 100k lol

cheers

 

Looking at doing this work on my 04 Lariat 4x4 5.4L myself, so how did you end up going about getting it up high enough? This is the only thing left that I’m trying to figure out before diving into the project.

 

Buy a couple of 8x8 pieces of lumber and cut into ~ 20" long pieces and placed cross ways under frame as you go higher and higher. Total clearance needed is about 24" to bottom of frame, it's much higher than you would expect and it needs to be STABLE. I suppose heavy duty, very tall, jack stands may work