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I'm trying to use the manual's procedure for removing the tranny with the engine in car. It says to 'lean the engine toward the transaxle'. I presume that means lower the tranny side, but leave the passenger side engine up, right? Well, I can't pull it completely clean because the rear motor mount is hitting the side of the suspension A-arm. What am I doing wrong? There's nothing in the procedure about removing the rear motor mount from the tranny, but even if I do, it looks like that corner of the tranny will still be held up. Who's done it this way before and had it work? Help?

Good question and I wish you luck in finding your answer for selfish reasons of my own(redropping tranny over winterbreak to put in Fidanza )

good question

You have to lean the engine quite far and I found it easier to remove the motor mount from the tranny. After that it still takes a bit of wiggeling to get out. No real tricks, just patients and watch for what it hits then move it so that it can go past. I pulled and reinstalled mine this way. It took about one afternoon to pull (2 hours give or take) and about the same to put back in.
However, I have a hoist and a balancing bracket and used it to lean the motor. Be careful, if you leave the passanger mount attached you chance tearing it. Once you get the splined shaft out of the engine it comes out pretty easy.

That's the trouble, getting the spline to clear all the way. If it was out already, I could have tilted it up and dropped it by hand. It's only 75 lbs. Did you have to rotate the tranny to get it to clear or something? I think I've got another half inch before the shifter extension and passenger axle extension pop off the tranny before I can rotate it. I swear they need to make engineers actually work on the cars they design. If they would have moved some stuff over just an inch here, an inch there, we could probably drop the tranny without any tilting at all and save alot of headaches.

I really don't remember it being any trouble at all. I just replaced my trans a few months ago. Twinsting it doesn't gain any more room? Did you pull the half shaft from the passanger side? (you should have) Did you pull both axles? (should have, less in the way) Did you pull the plastic fender liner?
I'd imagine you pulled all that, but with that said, you can also drop the whole motor down a bit by placing a jack under the engine and letting all mounts loose, place a engine hoist above for protection before letting the mounts loose. Let it down slowly after pulling the botls that hold the cross member, while watching hoses and wires. That should give a bit more room than letting one end hang down.

PATDIESEL wrote: I'd imagine you pulled all that,

Why would you image someone in a ruch did anything right? OK. Pulled the axle extension off the block and pulled the hub down just enough to pop the passenger axle out. Then, it would rotate, but it was hitting on the transission mount because I didn't completely take it out. Once that was out, I rotated it about 60 degrees and it popped.

What pissed me off is I did all this, and it looks like the machine shop did machine the flywheel steps afterall. So they either did it to the wrong height, or I'm going to have to get a new clutch disc to hold the power. Something's making it slip, and I've got autocross on Saturday.

What clutch are you using?
Sorry that I assumed you did all that? hehehe, I've done crap in a hurry like that, but found that the right way and the slow way are always different. The slow way always ends up to be what you tried to skip to make the fast way