petrock

How many bolts are there to mount a 3.8L to a 4R70W automatic transmission? I pulled the motor on my wifes car and got it back in no problem. However, I can’t help but think I am missing a motor to tranny bolt. When I took them out initially I put them in a piece of cardboard in the order/pattern they came out. But now that I got them all back in, I don’t have a bolt to mount the tranny dipstick tube to.

I have a total of 8 bolts. 5 on the drivers side and only 3 on the passenger side (not including the starter mounting bolts). I have the passenger side long middle bolt below where the tranny locator pin is on the passenger side, just like on the drivers side. But that bolt is too low to mount the tranny dipstick tube to. Am i missing a bolt or something else?

Thanks...

petrock

Anyone?

petrock

*bump*

Stevo86

Dipstick usually goes on the top one on the passenger side.

jthorn9

8 bolts sounds correct. You should be able to feel around in there and count to see if one is misplaced.

On my 5.0 there were 8 bolts, however there was a 9th bolt that helped to mount the starter to the belhousing flex plate but did not have anything to do with securing the motor to the belhousing.

petrock

Yeah, I figured as much. I guess I should have worded my problem a little differently. Its the bolt whole between the dipstick mounting bolt whole and the top bolt of the starter that I’m concerned with. It takes a long bolt, just like its twin on the drivers side of the motor. This bolt whole is right next to the whole for the motor/tranny guide pin.

If a bolt does belong there, then that means I should have a total of 9 bolts (not including the two starter bolts) to mount the tranny to the motor. The service manual isn’t much help here. It doesn’t show how many bolts there are in any of the diagrams or descriptions I’ve found.

I married into this car, so I don’t have any service history on it before my wife and I started dating 7 years ago. I know I’ve never touched it except while pulling the motor ‘recently’. So it is likely that if a bolt should be there it has been long gone for a while, or it could be hiding somewhere in my garage. Either way, I’d like to know if there should be a bolt there or not.


I’ve got a lot of room under there right now since the exhaust is unbolted at the exhaust manifold at the moment. I would like to get this sorted out before I button everything back up again in the (hopefully) near future. The wife has been driving my truck for almost 6 months while her car (this mustang) has been in pieces in the garage, and she is a horrible parallel parker. So we both want this project done...

Thanks a lot for your replies...