Hey I have everything off the engine except the motor mount bolts and the transmission. The book I have says to remove the four bolts off the transmission. They are t-50 torx bolts. Can not get them to budge. Finally hit it with an air impact wrench and it just striped the bits. There appears to be bolts on the bellhousing to the engine as well. They are in a tight spot. Can I just disconect the bellhousing/flywheel cover (if so how)? or do I have to get those 4 transmission to flywheel bolts off and how to I get them to budge?

I am replacing the t-5 with a tko-600 and taking out the 305 in favor of a 383 with a holley stealth ram on it. Was hoping to pull the engine tomorrow but I am stuck. I could just try to pull it with the transmission attached but even with the radiator and fans out I am not sure I can get enough angle on the puller for that. Any help would be great.

 

that would be the four bolts to the flywheel cover/bell housing not the flywheel

 

Don't know about yours, but my bolts are a standard 15mm... Be careful when removing them so you don't ruin the bellhousing as the housing is aluminum and you seem to have a nasty case of galvanic corrosion going on, the kind that broke my original alternator case and bracket...

:edit: If you shine a light on the bolts you will see that they have a hex head with the torx pattern in the middle for some strange reason... Maybe so they didn't get mixed up with other bolts for the housing to the engine?

 

Yeah the 4 bolts that are torx bolts are on the transmission. The ones on the bellhousing are the ones you are talking about. I think I am going to drop the drive shaft undo the mounting brackets for the transmission and try and cherry pick it out attached to the engine.

 

You should be able to pull it with the trans attached to the engine. I had no problems pulling mine that way. I *just* cleared the top of the radiator support, but it made it. Of course, if the ceiling in my garage was higher than 6.5' I wouldn't even have had that close call. Double check your trans to bellhousing bolts, I'm almost positive mine were 15mm with Torx centers as well.

If you don't want to pull the trans and engine both, get it set up on the picker, lift the engine a bit so it clears the mounts, then slide the whole thing forward so the trans slides on the crossmember a bit. Once you can reach all the bellhousing to engine bolts from the top, put a jack under the trans and remove the bolts. Use the jack to slide the trans back a bit to disengage from the engine and pull the engine the rest of the way out.

 

thanks that was a fantastic tip. I am going to go that route and use the cherry picker to get to the bell housing bolts. Also the bolts are 15mm so I probably can hit those with a breaker bar and get them off know that I have the car up on blocks. I got the driveshaft off and the torque arm bolts in the back off. I removed the one at the front (enigine side) of the torque arm, which came un-done using 5/8 and then the lower one (that the cat mount is attached to) but the one at the very top of the front of the torque arm slips on 5/8 and is to big for 9/16. It appears to have 2 points rounded off. I could not find any metric socket to do the trick either. Any trick on this one or just need to get a special wrench? I am assuming once I have the 2 rear and 3 front bolts the torque arm should drop off.

 

I had to tap the torque arm in the back to get it to pop off the differential. Just a good smack with your hand oughta do it. As far as that front bolt, try a crescent wrench on 2 of the good flats.

 

Trick for rounded bolts is that EVERYTHING on a 3rd gen is METRIC.

Second trick is to go to Sears and get a set of Bolt-Outs.

Third, why does everyone insist on leaving the rear springs in the car when doing this? A second set of stands (under the rear control arm mounts) doesn't cost THAT much, and it's a LOT easier to realign the torque arm when the springs aren't trying to push it through the driveshaft hump...

 

I'll remember that when I am putting it all together. But I am going to go aftermarket and hook the torque arm to the frame.