[Shootnride]

Gentlemen,

Thanks to all of you for your input.

Tim,
No, I really don't NEED to pull the transmission, but after looking more closely at the situation and taking some measurements, I'm thinking it may be a little easier to just pull the whole thing as a unit. The crankshaft nose on the FE motor is pretty long and after looking up the length of the TKO input shaft, there isn't enough room to move the engine forward to clear the input shaft before the crankshaft nose would hit the front frame cross member. So, at the very least it looks like the trans would have to be unbolted, shifter removed (and possibly removal of the driveshaft) and either raised or slid rearward, so if I have to do that, I might as well just pull it. Also, as Mark IV said, it eliminates any transmission re-alignment issues.

Hopefully it will be out this weekend and I won't have to bother you guys with more questions.

Oh ya, and friends and beer will definitely be involved. They always are for this sort of thing and over the past 40 odd years, we haven't ruined any cars/engines yet !

Thanks again,

Ted