Caravan Trans swap What went wrong?

Make sure there isn't a locator pin stuck in the new trans. They belong in the engine block. If either side has a pin in the block and in the trans, it will obviiously never go in.

Rotate the converter some to make sure it is all the way into the pump. Watch out for wiring, tubing or other parts that may get pinched between the trans and the engine. (fingers included)

Very few times will you have a trans just drop into place without having to wrestle it a bit.

I wasted at least a day doing that once!

When in doubt, put some engineer's blue on the both sides when they don't mate if you can't see what isn't mating... that way at least you can see which parts of what made contact when the blue is scraped off.

--scott

Look at Steve W.'s comment. I can remember some applications where the torque convertor was prone to sliding out, and we had to use a little tool, basically a little metal strap bolted to the mounting surface, to hold it in place while we wrestled the tranny into position with the flexplate. (The tool was then unbolted and slipped out)

Did you re-use the original torque convertor and flexplate? If not, you could have gotten some mismatched parts.

Hello. Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. Appearently the reason the transmission wouldnt line up with the engine is because the engine was pushed several inches back from it`s original location. Not a lot but just enough so that the transmission wouldnt go that far back without hitting the firewall/crossmember..We were so focused on moving the transmission back to where the engine was it never occured to us to move the engine forward to the transmission :-(

Double check engine left to right position. There is a spec in the repair manual. It needs to be correct, to prevent bottoming out of the axleshafts when the suspension compresses.