Thanks MM & FE for the tips. The new cable arrived yesterday so this morning I got started on the replacement. It was a lot easier than i anticipated considering it was my first time doing this job. Once i got the cross member dropped and pan off it was about a 20 minute job. I have to admit, I did crack open the old tranny to see what i was getting into. All in all it went pretty smoothly. The only hiccup happened when we tried to push the old cable out from inside the trans and managed to break 3 of the 4 plastic clips off the cable housing. We found 2 right away as they landed on my tshirt, and found the 3rd just inside. I'm posting up some pics in case anyone needs them for future reference.
I used a right angle pick to pull the wheel into place against the spring and held it there with a long screwdriver. next came the needlenose pliers to wiggle it out the side and release the cable from the wheel. (coulldnt get any pics of the needle nose doing its thing as my hands were full) After snapping the new cable into the trans housing, we pushed the cable in from the end in the engine compartment. I used the pick and screwdriver again to set the wheel and after a few tries with the needle nose pliers (ok, 20 minutes of "almost there... OH, CRAP!") installed the cable on the wheel. This was a lot better than dropping the valve body. Now i just have to return those new valve body seals...
The rig seems to be shifting nicely, and running well. Maybe I'll actually take it off the pavement one of these days in the near future. but i don't want to talk about it too much, the rig might hear me and decide otherwise.
Anyway, here are the pics.
transmission throttle cable replacement Thanks again, guys. This was a nice way to sve $600 and boost my confidence with yet another "new to me" task. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />