Im getting ready for the 305 to 350 swap, now what is easier, pull the whole engine with accessories, headers and transmission? or leave the transmission in the car and support it?

I have a lift, jacks, basically ewerything.

Thanks.

 

pull it out all together then put it in all together.
Put ramps under the rear wheels to angle the car.

here we are putting an LT1/4L60E into the car with headers and all accessories already on,

 

Ramps under the rear is a good idea - wish I had thought of it

Definitely remove the radiator beforehand - I didn't, bumped mine, and had to replace it.

Plus having tranny out, it's alot easier to do a shift kit, boost valves, TC Lockup, etc.

Those top 2-3 tranny/engine bolts are a real PITA to get to!

While it's out, get rid of the ground wire that is on the pass side tranny/engine bolt, and reconnect it to an easier-to-get-to location like the rear of the head or something. Also don't reconnect the trans dip stick tube holder in case you ever need to replace the dipstick tube. (these are 2 things I'd wished I'd done when mine was out!)

 

It depends on the headers you have if you can pull them with the motor. I know that my headman shorties one had to be removed.

The top bell housing bolts are easy to get at if you got a lot of extensions and a swivel, just go them from under the car.

If you don't need to pull the transmission for anything I would leave it in there. It's not that much more difficult to just pull the motor, if any more difficult at all if the new motor is using the same transmission.

 

I prefer to take both out, stabbing the trans is alot easier on the ground than in the car. Also take that distributor off before take out and put it back on after install. I leave the passenger side accessories on and take off the alternator and power steering bracket and leave that under the hood so I don't have to diconnect the power steering lines. I have edelbrock shorties and I took them off, of course after I got rid of all the AC and smog pump stuff I could have intalled the engine with them already on, but was significantly easier to put them back on with all that stuff out of the way.

cheers, Ken.

 

Lots of great information, thanks all.

Radiator is coming out for sure, other then the torque converter and calibrating the governor, I havo no other plans for the transmission.

Because of the car lift and doing the swap on my own, I am leaning towards leaving the transmission in there. I need to look at it closely tomorrow.

 

another good way to get the top bell housing bolts out without a swivel and not from underneith. just unbolt the trans and jack it up as far as you can and take the top ones out with a wrench , then set it back down and do the rest from underneith

either way works

 

This is how it came out and in.

Support and unbolt transmission crossmember, lower/tilt transmission backwards until the lower 2 on each side, tras/engine bolts are accessible and removed.

Put transmission back in place, support and unbolt the top 2 trans/engine bolts from the top

Pull the engine.

Backwards to reinstall.

Thanks again to all for the good suggestions.

 

looks like arrived a bit too late, but for what its worth, here are my :

I left the transmission in when I swapped out into my 350, I had about 2-3 jacks that I used to adjust different angles (front/back of tranny). I just unbolted the few bolts from the K-Member, and lowered everything about 3-4 inches and that was more than enough to get a wrench to the top of the bellhousing. Once the tranny was off, just pulled the engine straight up...