Picture of my crackplate - i can't believe I made it to the shop!

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

So I knew my flexplate was cracked pretty bad.  I didn't know it was this bad.  It's hard to really represent it well in a picture, but there are only 2 spots that it's still being held together.  There's about 3/4" between the 2 balancing holes, and at about the 8 o'clock position there's a spot about 1/2" between where the 2 cracks meet.  Somehow it still drove fine, didn't make a ton of noise and was completely quiet when cold.  And the starter never slipped.

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

It's led me to a few conclusions/thoughts.  

1 - Eagles have a higher than average will to live.
2 - It's good my transmission shifts smooth - a couple hard shifts and that would be all she wrote.
3 - A lot of the original AMC components are really good quality.  The biggest thing that surprised me during the replacement process is that I still have the original starter, or at least it's an original American Motors starter.  172k and 25 years old, not bad.
4 - It's probably easier to take the trans and tc out to replace the flex plate.  We did it on a lift, and just slid everything back.  It took about an hour of screwing around and dropping pieces to get the first bolt started in the new plate.  And it seemed dangerous to have that massive hunk of metal supported by 2x4's and pieces of angle iron on jacks with nothing holding it securely, while standing underneath it.  It took 3 of us 9 hours with no breaks. 

[Jurjen]

Yours looks even worse than mine did!
We had two transmission jacks at our disposal, that was very helpful.
As far as I could tell, this was the first time that it came apart.
It is like you are wrenching on a real machine, not a Dinky Toy.
No breaks? We had lunch and two coffee breaks, but we are lazy Dutchmen....

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

The guy that sold me the car and his father were helping me replace it.  Really, I didn't know what I was doing so mostly I held lights and passed tools and they did most of the work.  But we all had things we would rather be doing, so we just kept at it and got 'er done.

[DaemonForce]

For future reference, it's only easier to get to this if you have a reason to pull the transmission. Otherwise, don't mess with it. Looking back, I have no idea how I managed to get through a rebuild when there were so many other problems but then again, I'm awesome. Nice crackplate. I have a rustplate around here somewhere in case mine ever starts to look like that. I should probably invest in a shiny new one.

American metal.

[amcinstaller]

pulled one out of a superduty at work the other day cracked all the way around the centre bolt hole ring. couldnt knock out the centre with a hammer. they hold together quite well considering, but yes, yours is quite bad!

[Hawk258]

you sir are lucky it didn't just shatter, though luck comes with owning an eagle... I had to rebuild my starter, BUT it is the original starter too. New brushes and everything. My first time doing a starter too

[shanebo]

Id have that hanging on my wall....talk about a good conversation piece.