Yeah the dowel pins are your friends for sure. I've replaced them before by myself on the floor with a floor jack and a cinder block it was ridiculously hard. It was too tall on the cider block to wheel it out from under the truck on the jack so I had to basically let if fall off and drag it. It was near impossible to get it back up on the jack and cinder block under neath the truck. But I had to use the cinder block cause the floor jack wouldn't reach the transmission. Nightmare...

4 guys don't do you any good if you can only get 2 under the car(in a position to do any good that is). That transmission jack turns that difficult job into to an easy one man job. But hey you was the one asking for tips thats the biggest tip I can give you based off experience.

James

 

Four speed, after lifting it I can hold it in place with one hand. The use the other to start the bolts. I too use long bolts sometimes, except with the heads cut off so they are basically long dowels.

 

That's a good trick on 4 spd's Damon. Used to use 1/2" running thread in the bellhousing to line them up too. When I was young I could put a manual trans on my chest under the car, then slide into position and stick it, then install the bolts one at a time while holding it into the bellhousing.
Never could do anything by hand with an auto, and never tried with a friend, as I figured it was a losing battle that way too. I have done them with a floor jack using a 12"x12" piece of plywood bolted to the jack and a strap racheted around the trans and the wood. It worked, but what a pain trying to use a prybar to move the jack around and line it up.

 

And this is why a lot of guys will tell you it's easier in the long run to r&r the engine and trans as a unit.
Of course, if you don't have a cherry picker....

 

well the reason I'm saying that is because working on my cars never goes easy, I dont know why but everytime I go to work on the cars something always happens to make the job 10x harder than it needs to be. And my luck ill probably have issues getting the thing to line up on the dowel pins or something stupid like that.

 

ya a transmission jack makes it very easy, but I just dont have access to one and dont have the cash to go spend $80 on one either.

 

That is EXACTLY what happens to me with the Camaro. I think its a simple job and something makes it super complicated, like the oil pan gasket..........effing nightmare if you dont have a way to jack up the motor.

But these are some good tips guys, I'm definitely gonna try to get my hands on a trans jack, and if not, ill use my 3 friends to lift it up while i bolt it up. How hard can it be? (famous last words)

 

Ya thats what I always thought. Now I look ahead to see what could give me problems.

 

Its just like with my bro's 3rd gen about 7 or 8 months ago we did the plugs on it and what shoulda taken about 45 minutes took us several hours because we couldn't hardly get to the #7 & #8 plugs plus while trying to put plugs in #2 & #4 I dropped the plug trying to thread it into the head and instead of it landing underneath the car in the grass it lands on the crossmember and rolls between the k-member and the oil pan.

 

Maybe a dumb question, but does the tail stock have a gasket on it where it bolts to the transmission? need to know before I'm under the car thinking "**** now i gotta run to the parts store"