Yeah, that rotor gets in the way, and its only an additional 3-4 minutes to get the brake parts off. Makes it a lot easier overall.

As it stands, the side cover is back on, the subframe is lifted and bolted back up, and I coincidentally noticed that I need a new balljoint as the rubber boot protecting it was completely shredded and it won't last much longer like that.

In any case, here'* my progress.

That plate probably prevents the car from being pushed into park while its moving. It can be pushed down fairly easily with the rod as you're inserting it. I first had issues because I thought it was supposed to be rotated.



Shifter linkage plate. The second picture shows the notch that'* open to allow the parking pawl rod to fit through.




Here'* the plate bolted back up and the pawl inserted. This part took me 1 hour. I've forgotten that when I work late at night, I sometimes forget the stupidest things, such as the direction in which you're supposted to rotate a nut to screw it on. I was trying to screw that 15mm nut on in reverse. :facepalm:




Here'* the spring I mentioned earlier, and the picture of it installed:




And here'* the clearance you have between the subframe and the transmission at the frontmost bolt (the closest one to the subframe) with the replacement bolts I put in to get rid of those T40 torx bolts:

Other then removing the side cover, the job looks fairly easy. Think of how much money you saved doing this yourself. Great job.

It was fairly easy, although intimidating

All in all here'* my list of costs:

$60 for 8 quarts of Dex VI Trans Fluid
$20 for a transmission filter and gasket
$27 for the parking pawl rod, shipped
$3 for bolts to replace the torx bolts

I called a transmission shop before starting this and they quoted me $800. I called other transmission shops in the area and all of them insisted that they wouldn't do it without pulling the engine, so their price was around the same.

Looks like I saved about $700 doing this myself.

In the process, I replaced a balljoint that seemed like it was going bad, and did an oil change. Car runs perfectly now, and shifts like butter. Dex VI definitely made a huge difference over the 20k mile old Dex III I used previously.

That'* a big chunk of change, and only a few hours of time to save it. Not to mention the feeling of doing it yourself.

I'd say the whole job probably took me about 8 hours from start to finish, taking random breaks, wiggling under the car instead of having it on a lift, and spending an hour trying to screw the 15mm nut for the shifter linkage plate backwards. That also includes an oil change.

I'm not afraid to get dirty. So long as I'm making less per hour than I'd have to pay a shop to fix my car, I'll fix it myself.

It felt great to have it done. I went out did some nice WOT runs. The car has been sitting for over 2 months.

I know that feeling. Got my car running good today after the cam change. Spent the day tuning and man, did it feel great.

Good job!! I spent all last weekend swapping engines and boy does my body feel it. But its good knowing that I was able to do it myself and save 15% on my car insur.... oh boy. LOL,

Looks like a job well done.

Wow this is an awesome write-up because i am having the exact same problem with my 97 lesabre right now... should be a piece of cake to fix now.