gettin a built tranny from combo with a 2800 vigi tc, cant afford stage 2, will go with stage 1. i got one question. should i do this swap myself or take it to a shop? what would labor run? im very mechanically inclined, i just finished heads/cam (in the driveway) i have no lift or tranny jack. what would you do?

 

you got a floor jack and jackstands?
I pulled my tranny in my garage with a floor jack and that is how its goin back in.
If you did heads and cam then this will be cake. Get a alot of extensions cause you need a LONG extension to get the top 2 bellhousing bolts. Be careful with the oil sending unit, I broke mine taking the tranny out,(motor tilts back) other than that I can not think of anything hard about it. I have a mechanic friend and he helped take it out once I got all the little stuff out of the way and it took like 10 minutes to pull the last 2 bellhousing bolts undo the tranny lines and drop the tranny. I have not reinstalled it yet but I am sure the only hard part will be fightin it back in there, once the bellhousing bolts are in and the crossmember is bolted up you can do the rest by yourself.

 

is there any kind of guide out there? i have a haynes manual.

 

Maybe somebody on here knows of one. I don,t.
It is pretty self explanatory, nothing real hard like making sure the opti is lined up or anything.
Just make sure you have a good selection of tools, you did the head/cam thing so you should have that covered. Make sure you don,t bend the hold down for the tranny dipstick or the wiring hold down that is on there with it. Be very sure the Torque converter is all the way on the tranny and it engages the pump housing or you will kill the pump. Torque arm bushing can give you problems but someone on here said to clamp it shut with vise grips and it is easier to put on so I am going to try that.
Not really that hard considering it is a major component of the vehicle.

 

how high would i have to get the car? would a set of ramps in the front and jackstands in the rear? (of course all braced up secure,for my safety would that be high enough?

 

You might see if you can round up some wood blocks to put under the wheels and on top of your ramps to lift it up even more than just ramps, know what I mean?
You have to get it high enough that when you get the tranny out you can slide it out from under the car. If you get the car high enough you can roll it out from under with the tranny on the jack, I had my car just high enough to get the tranny itself out so I had to slide it off the jack and then slide the tranny out from under the car. I used a square of plywood like an inch thick and the same size as the tranny pan to distribute the weight of the tranny and not damage the pan. And yes it helps to get the rear end up as well but it does not have to be real high.
I took my torque arm off to get to the u joint bolts easier and I am installing a BMR torque arm so it had to come off anyway.