I am taking the engine and trans out of my 88 GTA. THere is a brace that runs from the trans. to the rearend. It looks like it is under load. Do I need to put a jack under this? Any tips would be helpful.
Thanks.

 

Thats the torque arm. Its not under any real load when the car is parked. It just keeps the rearend from rotating with the tires when you're driving.

You'll need to disconnect it from the transmission in order to pull out the engine/trans. I would reccommend just unbolting it from the rear. There are 2 long bolts\nuts that run vertically through it, and through the differential. I use 2 13/16 wrenches to undo one bolt at a time. I know they are actually metric size bolts, but 13/16ths fits it snugly. Before you remove this, make sure and put blocks in front of and behind the rear tires. Once you remove the torque arm, the car can roll a couple inches forward and back, because the entire axle will actually turn a little bit. To remove the torque arm, undo the 2 long bolts holding it to the differential, slide it off the mount on the differential, then slide the arm back out of the transmission mount. There are no bolts holding the front of it in place, its just slipped into a rubber bushing. Hope this helps

EDIT: forgot to mention, once you get this out, you can unbolt the driveshaft from the differential also. Its alot easier to get at those bolts with the torque arm out of the way. There should be four 11MM( pretty sure theyre 11's), which hold little strap looking things to the yoke on the differential. Unbolt these and take of the little straps. The driveshaft should then slide forward off of the yoke. Then you can lay the driveshaft on the ground, and slide it out of the transmission tailshaft.

 

Your the man!! Now that I think about it it is just sitting in the front rubber mount. I have the car on jackstands so rolling won't be an issue.Thanks for the help.

 

Hehe its all fresh in my mind at the moment, I just got done swapping a rear end to another car :P