Thanks Sledge! It took a left coaster :)) to give me hope! Tomorrow is the day. I've gotten some good advice about the seal but getting to it is what I am concerned about. I know what I was thinking about is similar to what you did. If I have to I'll start all over so be it, have to look at it as part of the experience. So as JIMI said it "but first... are you experienced....well yes i am!
Thanks

Our first BDR experience was with 188, and I believe that car has the situation Sledge mentioned with the cross brace that is fixed. You will need to follow his advice on this one.

Is it the driveshaft that really gets in the way of removing the tranny or the brace? You could always drop the rear end and remove the drive shaft, more work but at least you don't have to cut any bracing.

From an earlier post, it sounds like you discovered that it is a two piece seal? If so just drop the pan, you don't need to remove the trans.
As mentioned earlier, make sure you use the FelPro performance seal. You will have to get this from Summit or Jegs, most likely your local parts store will not have this.

Justin

I needed to cut the brace to get the trans far enough aft for the input shaft to clear the bell housing. With the engine mounts still attached to the engine and frame you can bring the back end of the trans down far enough such that, in combination with the cut brace, you have barely sufficient room to pull the trans.

I was able to wiggle the driveshaft aft and up far enough to no longer be a limiting factor, without dropping the diff.

I'm not an experienced mechanical person. This was my first and second R&R of a trans only. I only have normal hand tools, floor jacks, wood blocks, and cardboard to roll around on, and no specialized tools or shop equipment. Thank goodness the T-5 only weighs 90 lb or so.

Others probably have better procedures which I would really like to hear about.

Well everyone my make over is complete and Sledge gets a gold star! It was tough but I took a c shaped cut out of the crossmember. My first atempt was 3" wide for the tail shaft. It was not quite enough. When I got the tranny up; there was not enough room to clear the shifter box when the imput could clear. I took it back out and made the notch wide enough for the shifter box to clear.
The drive shaft was fished over the rear end first, and when I got the tans in had less than 1/2 " to clear. ALL is good. The 2" cross member is still in tact and I intend to re support it with a 1 1/2" x 1 1/2 " L angle to cover the cut out.
This was a looong learning exercise but well worth it.
FYI my rear seal leak is still a mystery. My engin in fact had a 2 piece seal installed into a 1 piece block. my theory is that whover built it put the crank on a lathe and cut a groove after they found out they messed up. It was supposed to be built by TRi States in PA but they had no record of the car, neither does BDR.
Who knows the truth, and at this point I 'm the only one. And since it mine now and I know what I've got I guess i'm finally a Cobra owner.
At my house we used to part the car in the garage. Now I have a garage that we park the cars in.
Thanks to all for your thoughts, suggestions and help!

Glad you were able to get it done. Just a suggestion but if you are going to that much trouble why not make the cross member removable like the later model BDRs?

Steve

Dont understand the crank in lathe, cut groove bit, the only way I can see that a 2 piece seal can be installed in a 1 piece block would be to spin up an alloy ring-split it so the 2 piece seal could be installed & then set the whole assy in the block with crank or press it in after crank installation , you would need to live out in the backblocks like me to go to that much trouble.:)