B&M Shift Kit Installation in Ford AOD transmission - PArt I

The 1940 Ford Rod is on it's way to Graveyard Customs this week for prep and paint and while there, I'll be turning my attention to engine and tranny upgrades and detailing, plus doing some work on the trim and some other pieces that need to be ready for re-assembly.

Today I got started on the B&M shift kit installation. I've done two of these before - in much older trannys (1967 and 1974) - and it made one hell of a difference. This trans is quite a bit newer (1989), but I'm sure it will still have a very  positive and very noticeable effect on shift crispness and overall speed by holding the RPM's longer, then changing harder, in each gear.

Up and onto the bench -

 Removing the pan and draining the oil.

Loosening one side of the pan allows the fluid to be drained slowly from one corner.

Once the pan is off there's about 20 - 10 mm bolts that hold the valve body in.

After removing all those bolts, the valve body and separator plate was removed to be worked on first -

 Here's where the magic happens:  the valve body, separator plate and torque plates.

 Gaskets top and bottom are removed and modified ones will be used in their place.

 The torque plates are then removed -

Here the gaskets and separator plate is removed and the check-balls (8 to 10 in all) are removed:

Below - the check balls and pressure springs - 

Next, replacing the springs. The shift kit has heavier springs designed to hold the shifts longer, at a higher RPM, before allowing the tranny to snap into the next gear -

 Here you can see the old black spring being replaced by the new, heavier,  red spring -

Another spring gets changed out - 

Once those items are changed out, the separator plate is slightly modified by drilling out a couple holes to a slightly larger (1/8") size. This allows more fluid to flow through to the accumulators.

 There a re a lot of holes and slots in the plate and one wrong move renders it useless. I carefully measured and went over the directions several times before proceeding!

 The instructions include a diagram showing which holes need to be enlarged, but there are a lot of dots, circles and slots! I went over it no less than 5 times - from various angles - to ensure I got them right.

 Again, this part is critical - the plate was marked and compared back to the instructions several times.

As per the instructions, the marked holes are to be drilled out to 1/8" inch (0.250") 

As shown below,  two of holes were already the correct size so only 2 needed to be changed.

The drill bits point to the two that needed to be drilled out:

After drilling, I took the edges off with a fine file, then removed any burrs with another, larger drill, twisted by hand over the holes.

Check balls go back in - 

Pressure springs go back in - 

Then the separator plate and gaskets are ready to be replaced.

 Then the torque plates are re-installed and torqued to 90 inch-pounds.

The valve body is now put aside and work begins on the actuators, shown below....

Stay tuned for Part II - 

Don't forget to check out my website at www.E-tekRestorations.com !