mrg

It's been a long time. IIRC, this is how the Muncie came out of my car. With engine lowered first to allow clearance, the trans was rotated 90* and moved forward while the input shaft was angled down to the left to clear the bell housing. Once the input shaft cleared the bell, the back of the engine was raised to allow more of a clearance 'hole' for the main case to pass through.
It was tight but the Muncie squeaked through.
John

plaidside

I just removed a trans from my friends 65 without removing the bell housing. He had side pipes and we had to disconnect them from the chassis to lower the engine.
It appears you have under car exhaust, therefore you must take the engine pipes off the manifolds to drop the trans.
That is what I had to do on my 64 last year.
Some things I do when i pull a trans beside what you have done.
You do not need to remove the distributor, only the cable.
Remove the transmission yoke and all the levers.
You do not have to loosen the motor mounts.
Keep a jack, with a block of wood, under the rear edge of the oil pan and lower the engine when the pilot portion of the input shaft is resting in the opening of the bell.
Lower engine until it comes out. You should have a helper.
Joe

Tom Heffernan

I just rebuilt the 4 spd. in my 65. I removed the two front exhaust pipes and the driveshaft.
I don't think I had to turn the transmission that far down to get the transmission back. I pointed the input shaft to the left. Hope this helps
Tom

SherpaPilot

Great information from everyone. I have copied and printed the info from the service manual. Thanks.

The transmission finally came out tonight. I had to remove the bell housing. As soon as it came off, the transmission came out very easily. Now its ready for the rebuild shop on Monday.

This was so much fun, I am looking forward to the reinstall (that's being sarcastic of course). I'm sure it will be just as challenging. The rebuild shop quoted me a price of about $695 for a complete rebuild including updates and installing a threaded drain plug. When I decide to sell this coupe, I can at least advertise it with a rebuilt transmission.

Thanks again to all the input. This project has been driving me crazy.

rtruman

This happened to me I worked all day long my friend came over during happy hour .
it was a 350 engine in a 63 corvette with a Muncie .
I twisted it counter wise and clockwise showing him how all day I struggled with clearance .
He worked on boats he jacked it up 4 clicks and it fell out.

vetter61

I do not lower the engine. I just put a safety jack under the oil pan. I then unbolt the shifter brackets from the tranny. I leave shifting rods connected to shifter and then remove the shifter as one unit. I find removing and reinstalling the shifter the sore spot in this tranny removal.I have side pipes so there is no issue with exhaust. I also use a tranny jack while I unbolt tranny from bell housing. I made wood blocks for the tranny jack to keep the tranny secure while I pull and rotate. I also unbolt the bell housing . I then pull tranny back and rotate it while at the same time pulling the bell housing with it. This gives you all the room in the world to maneuver the bell housing around to clear the tranny input shaft. Then I hold onto the bellhousing as i lower the tranny and bell housing as a unit.I have done it this way many times and it works great. I have always thought of milling a slot in the bell housing for input shaft clearance. You wouldn't see the slot with the tranny bolted up.. This way you could leave the bell housing bolted to the engine and have the clearance to just pull the tranny . I should mention i do this project on a lift. The last car I did this on was around 7 years ago and if memory serves me right the pull time was around 30-40 minutes. I find the biggest trouble for me is the damn shifter removal and install.

GTOguy

5 year old thread. The OP probably has it figured out by now, if he still has the car.

Railroadman

See post #24. He got it removed back then. By now, he may even have it replaced in the car!

On the other hand, the dimensions involved have not changed since then, so this thread is probably still quite useful to somebody newer to the scene.