So yesterday was the big day. the engine is out. It actually was a breeze compared to the preparations with (solid rusted) bolts in places that are ALWAYS 1/1000s of an inch to narrow to put your wrench on with ease. I really sometimes think that Betsy is actually really hating me for putting her back to life.

But I got everything loose breaking only one bold for the bumper I actually didn't need to remove as it connected the bumper to the brackets

O well, mistakes will be made.
The biggest worry for me was to separate the engine from the transmission, and here REALLY is a lesson to be learned for everybody.
I disconnected a lot of tails of outboard engines to renew the seal of the distributor, and boy are you into trouble if you just don't have the magic fingers that puts everything just right so you just put the tale back on the engine with ease. I just don't have those, so i guess you can understand my worry hear as you can hold the tail of an outboard under 100 HP in your hands without force. This is however not the case with the engine and transmission in my beloved Betsy.
Then you get advise from experts. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate every bit of information given but the problem with experts is that they have dozens of experiences with different engines and transmissions and they are going to warn you for every problem they ever found.
So I did the right thing, went on youtube, Just put "how to remove a 727 transmission from a Dodge 360 and there we go:
Basic How to Remove 727 transmission 1980 Dodge D150 2WD *Drag TruckMopar TF727 360 RemovalThe BIG advantage: You see for yourself how it's done, but most importantly, You can compare parts with yours and when things look the same you'll pretty safe you can work the same way.


The only thing I did different: I drained the transmission oil in advance to avoid the mess showed in the second video, because when I would have done the same, I would have had BIG problems because of environment rules in the Netherlands.
Put an oil drain pan under the transmission pan and loosen the bolts. What I did was loosen the bolts on the engine side just enough so the transmission pan can move freely and the bolts at the back as far as possible. Keep the one of the bolts in the middle of both sides tight to remove last. The bolts at the sides you can remove. Open the last bolts on both sides the same way as the others and now pry the pan loose on the back side where the bolts are loosened the most. Doing it this way Will give you a controlled flow of the transmission oil on just one side and not all over the place
Changing the fluid/filter on a Torqueflite A727 Transmission Now draining the oilpan showed me something I really wasn't happy about. If you were looking for gold and found this in your goldpan you would jump and land on the moon, but in this case...

So would love an experts opinion on this. I don't know what happened with this transmission but I do know that the transmission oilpan was pretty clean compared to the video underneath, and the filter was pretty new. Also the previous
idiot has shown he was in here because of the big blobs of liquid sealant everywhere.
So another issue to fix, but that's for later.
I went on and remove the bolts that keep the transmission to the engine and after that it went pretty smoothly.
You need to support your transmission because else it will fall down to the floor probably damaging the tailend of your transmission or breaking off things. I did that by replacing the oilpan with just a few bolts to keep it in place, support the complete bottom of the oilpan with two wooden beams and then keeping it in place with a jack.
Then removed the engine with a engine jack lift and this actually was the only part i needed help with.
There just really isn't a good place where you can support the back of your engine so it will buckle when you use the brackets for the alternator and power steering for lifting the engine out.
So first i freed the transmission from the engine by letting a second person move the engine jack stand forward. while supporting the back myself by hand. But warning, I removed the heads and the intake manifold remembering they were allready very heavy, so be prepared that the block is extremely heavy, so I removed the engine in steps setting the engine on its oilpan in between. with the following results.


Now I said I would place one more video. For everybody who would like to know how the inside of the A727 transmission looks like:
727 Transmission Tear Down - What's Inside The Legend?