ok heres the deal. im trying to pull the motor out of my 88 camaro. i unbolted all the bolts from the bell housing, and i cant get it out. i know your sopose to unbolt the torque converter and the flywheel but the motor is shot and i cant get it to turn for obvious reason. what am i doing wrong? does the trans have to be in park or something ( i had it in neutral). ive tried to lift the motor and shake it loose but i cant get the thing off, please help.

 

its takes quite a bit of effort to seperate the engine from the trans, even with all the bolts out. Try lightly tapping a flathead screwdriving in between the engine and trans, once you get enough seperation to fit a nice big prybar in there, pry away.

 

Did you unbolt the engine mounts???

 

wow.. what if huh? Yeah, there is 3 TC bolts to the flywheel that you need to take out, or you will have to bolt the trans back up and take it out as a whole.

 

yeah the mounts are out, but since i can rotate the flywheel or tc i cant get all the bolts out. what about dropping the trans and then pulling the motor?

 

I wasn't trying to be a smartass by anymeans, I just wanted to check that one off, how many bolts did you remove from the trans bell housing?? and the tc?? other than all the wiring, hoses and exhaust and distributor it should come out. You might have to get a bigger flat screwdriver or prybar and use that in the flywheel teeth and pry against the bellhousing or anyother thing you can get levarge on and should be able to move it, other than that you are going to have to remove the trans by pulling it straight back about 6 inches to remove the tc from the trans input shaft. But don't let it hang on the shaft it will break, and then down. Good luck

 

Though it is preferable to remove all the flexplate to converter nuts/bolts, it is not necessary. You can pull the engine with the converter attached, and it will just slide out of the trans. It's going to make a BIG MESS, so have a drain pan under there first.

What is probably holding you up at this point is the locating pins are possibly stuck in the bell housing. Once the engine is lifted high enough to clear the mounts, get under there w/a prybar, and go crazy.