i am trying to put my motor back in and can't get it to line up witht he trans. do you guys have any tricks or hints to help me. thanks

 

Amazingly 3rdgens arent my favorite cars to stuff engines back in but the trick to align the transmission and the engine is. Put a floor jack under the transmission if automatic stick a peice if plywood between the jack and the pan. Raise the transmission up as high as possible, when the car starts to lift up back the jack off a hair. Then slide the engine in, if possible nose the front of the engine down once your over the mounts. Once your over the mounts slowly drop the engine an inch at a time until the dowles line up with the correct spot on the trans. At this point put the very bottem two bellhousing bolts in, you should be able to get a few threads going on each, lower the transjack down a hair then the engine down a hair then tighten the two bell housing bolts as tight as possible and remove the transmission jack.

 

Uh, his user info says 5-speed...

Take the tranny out, put the engine in, put the tranny back in.

 

That eliminates the plywood between the pan and jack then. Ive never taken out the transmission never had a need to loosen one except on some FWD's. Why create more work.

 

Put the bell housing, fork, & throwout bearing on the trans; put the flywheel and clutch on the engine; raise the trans up and pull it forward as far as it will go; tip the rear of the engine down a little, compared to how it's supposed to sit in the car; and they should go together if you're careful. The engine and trand MUST BE at the same angle, with the bell housing surface parallel to its flange on the back of the engine; if they're not, you'll never get them to mate up. Start a couple of the lower bell housing bolts, and as you turn them in by hand, wiggle the engine and trans around to get them to join together farther and farther. DO NOT use the bolts to pull the trans to the engine, if they won't go togehter by themselves; you'll just end up destroying whatever isn't lined up. Then once you get those 2 bolts in, drop the engine the rest of the way in, and put in the rest of the bolts.

That's how I always do mine when the trans is still in the car.

 

When my 350 was going in, my uncle was slowly dropping down the engine into the car, and I was waiting under the car holding the trans (the driveshaft was still in holding up the back end, and the trans held up by steel tie-wire in front)

The engine had the clutch assembly and bellhousing bolted to it when it was being dropped in, so while the engine was going down in, I was holding the trans in place, slightly angled up so that the engine would just sorta 'slide onto' the input shaft.

It was time consuming that way, but it did work. It is a real pain in the azz to get to those bolts after it was all together though