I'm going to be helping my brother pull the 5.0 out of his 91 Firebird. I haven't worked much on the 3rd Gen cars. If you remove the radiator/fan shield, can you pull the engine and transmission out together from the top? Also, to do that, would it be necessary to remove the front bracketry or can we leave that intact until the engine is out of the vehicle? Thanks.

 

Trick I have used that saves a ton of time is...

Disconnect everything and you can pull the engine/trans together. Jack the back of the car up as much as you can. Rear tires should be 24+ inches+ off the ground. Make sure you have a good heavy duty hoist and be careful. You can install it easily with this method also. Having the car on such an angle makes getting the long trans under there. Goodluck!

 

Remove the accessories and brackets. And yes, remove the radiator and fan - you can get it out with radiator in, but chances are you'll make one small false move and poke a hole in it, so just remove it. Engine/tranny combo will come out as a unit, as long as you use a load leveler on the hoist.

 

ooh and the front bracketry should fit on the way out once the radiator is out.

 

I got the 305 out with all the pulleys on there and with the radiator out. I did have a little problem with the crank pulley clearing, but with a little moving around every thing came out as a hole (engine and trans).
Wish I knew the trick of lifting the back half of the car at the time.

 

Yeah it will work but you'll have to pull the accessories off as well to get it out in one shot. What I find works great is taking it out in two parts, install the trans in first and than the motor. Easiest way to get the motor back in is taking one engine mount off the motor side.

 

if an auto tranny, get a cap for the tail shaft (couple bucks) so you don't drip fluid everywhere.

remove accessories including power steering (don't just move it aside)

remove radiator and fan.

vehicle on 4 jack stands.
remove speedo cable

no need to disconnect tranny coolant lines or tv cable

remove torque arm
remove drive shaft.

when ready to yank, put pressure on the chain, go underneath and remove the tranny crossmember

lift it up, you don't need a load balancer

push down on the tranny as you lift and angle

you don't need to remove motor mounts or stock exh manifolds

I just did it and just put it back in last weekend

heck of a lot easier than a 4th gen

 

Just out of curiosity, what is a LOAD LEVELER ??? and where do you get one..?

stone

 

Look it up on harborfreight.com .

 

Looked it up, seems like a cool thing to have.. Stone

 

i have a 305, sadly its a stick shift, so im having issues putting it back in, if i dont do it right the clutch keeps misaligning, so i think ill just drop the tranny and put it all back in one piece

 

Did you say sadly its a stickshift? You are crazy, manuals are awesome! On a serious note, its way easier to drop it in as one unit then try and line everything up under the car. Not so bad if you have a lift, sucks if youre laying on your back...

 

thanks for your reply, what i ment its that sadly its a stick shift when you look at it from the point of view that it it alot harder to keep the thing aligned, but i love stick shift, i currently own a small 4 cil s10 truck, very nice, but with 240k miles on it, it has no power left