Reply to "ZF Removal"

It's really pretty easy, maybe 4 hours IF you loosen motor mounts & jack (considerably less if not). My dash 1 is especially easy since no factory side mounts. If you have a dash 2 it takes longer unless you're willing to bend your side mount tabs to enable you to pull the ZF straight back. Basically you just, in approximate order:

Remove 4 bolts each side connecting halfshafts to ZF, Unbolt side mounts assuming you have them, Unbolt AC condensor & dryer from body & move onto padded right quarter panel, Remove condensor grill, Unbolt any rear ZF mount, Remove any parking brake cables that may be bolted to your bellhousing, Unbolt slave bracketry from bellhousing, pull slave lever arm off ZF cross-shaft & set to side, Unbolt & remove camber bar (jacking car helps), Disconnect shifter shaft by driving out pin, Disconnect reverse light switch, Unbolt all bellhousing to block bolts (don't forget there are probably 2 underneath at dust cover), & Disconnect speedo drive from ZF by unbolting the huge nut, NO others. I then sling webbing around side shafts & pull back with hoist, but with helpers can pull off by hand. Keep in mind at this point you will probably either have to bend your side mount tabs OR loosen engine mounts to give you more upward flex before you can come back. If you have to jack engine, keep a close watch on the distributor cap if it's already close to firewall & rear glass, so as not to crack rear glass. May also have to loosen headers at that point, I suppose. Reinstallation is the reverse, just a little more time consuming to plug back on.

Good luck. I'm not a serious mechanic and have found it to be very easy on my car, though admittedly a Dash 2 is a bit more time consuming if don't want to bend the tabs, in many cases. Just don't apply much upward ZF pressure until it's substantially unplugged as you don't want to bend the ZF's input shaft!