I have a question that hopefully will be pretty basic for some folks out there. I have a 1989 Ranger with a 4 cylinder engine and 5-speed manual shift. The truck’s transmission is slowly leaking oil. I can tell exactly where it’s leaking. It leaks though the joint between the tranny tailpiece and the main big part of the transmission. Apparently the gasket in between has worn out.

So it looks pretty straightforward from the outside to loosen the bolts and remove the tailpiece in orderto replace that gasket. My question is: if I remove the tailpiece from the rest of the tranny, are a bunch of complicated collars and cogs and springs or whatever else going to fall out and be impossible to get back together properly? Or is it more simple than that?

Haynes manual offers no info on this.