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to remove and replace my engine/transmission by myself, I continued yesterday installing my transmission. Success! Here's what I used to make this happen: Transmission Jack
Without this jack, I couldn't have done it alone. The last time I bench pressed a transmission into place, it was 1982. With age, comes wisdom and the transmission jack was the only way to go. Being able to crank the handles to tilt left to right and forward to back in half inch increments proved invaluable. The other "have to have" items were guide bolts.
Home Depot provide the metric bolts about 5 inches long. I cut the heads off and dremeled a slot into the ends.
I started with four bolts (two at the bottom in the 5 O'clock / 7 O'clock positions)
...and two at the 10 O'clock / 2 O'clock positions
but after several attempts to move the transmission into place I removed the Upper bolt/guide on the passenger side (2 O'clock position). Either it was too long or something else, but it was keeping the transmission from aligning with the other three. I took that one out and then the drivers side upper bolt began to line up and the bottom guides lined up. Before I took that upper bolt out, I tried to jack the front of the engine up in order to tilt it back to make everything line up, but that didn't work at all. My motor mounts were not tightened, but never the less, the engine didn't want to tilt at all. Once the (3) guide/bolts were started into the transmission holes, I stretched out under the car with my feet on the trans jack and my hands grabbing the rear sway bar and did a leg press. It took a couple of pushes and I guess I was lucky, the splines seemed to be lined up and the transmission moved into place.
Now, to remove the guide/bolts. A small panic started to seep into the scene when I realized that I was going to have a hard time removing the upper guide bolt.
But, after trying an assortment of screwdrivers of various lengths, I just reached up and around and unscrewed it with my hand. The lower guide/bolt that I put into the bottom long bolt hole (5 O'clock position)wasn't long enough to extend it out of the transmission hole. But, my screwdriver fit into the hole and I screwed it out.
I followed the tech instructions for which bolt goes into what hole (very important)and the transmission is all hooked up with no where to go. Now begins the process of bracket identification. In the next few weeks, I'll be posting a bunch of "Where does this go?" I bagged and tagged everything, but a lot of the smaller stuff needs more explanation than the few words that I tagged it with. I should have taken more pics, but well...you know.
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Successful single-handed transmission stabbing. Determined - 
