Hey guys I am helping a buddy remove his 2.4 from his 1999 Grand am and swap in another 2.4 from a 2000 he bought, anyways we have everything off and ready to come out we have the motor hooked onto the lift but the transmission isn't seperating to easily from the motor, I unhooked the stud on the bottom and all otehr bolts surrounding the transmission to the engine ( from what I can see and feel anyways lol) I removed the axle to motor mount bolts also (ididn't have to take off the passenger wheel) andyways we are trying to get the motor out without removing the transmission cause it's an auto for one and for 2 he wants to keep this trans cause it's good.

Anyways if any one has any tips or tricks as to seperate the two let me know asap, suppost to have @!#$ty weather here and we don't have a garage just a little makeshift tarp covering the 99 for now lol,

TIA guys.

Oh yeah another thing We unhooked the exhaust manifold right at the head but it won't come loose, would this cause any problems with seperating the engine and the transmisson? I don't think it would but not sure, another thing after the axle mount is unhooked and the 9 I believe transmission bolts are out and the 3 flywheel bolts are out, as long as the torque converter is out it should slip apart right? I mean I can't see anything else that would casue the two not to come apart! any help here guys would be greatly appreciated not sure when we are going to stop working on the car for tonight but if you guys know (and I'm sure there are plenty of you that do out there) please throw me some tips.

Where are the other 2 bolts that attach to the oil pan other then the stud that I removed? do those bolts go straight up or are they facing horizontal in the tranny?

you might be better off just pulling the transmission too, and unbolting it off the car, than onto the new engine. its a tight fit in a cav (not sure about your car...prolly still). you can re use the old transmission, too. just pull it out too. cause hooking it in and dropping the motor//trans in together is going to be easier than bolting all that @!#$ up whil its in the car. thats just my opinion though.


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Mike wrote:The auto to manual swap is not as involved as you would think.
Get all the parts you need in a pile, and drive the car into it.
They will find their way into the correct places.

There is a bracket that connects the engine to the tranny on the end of the transmission. Take off the pass wheel and take a look, its inside there.
As for the exhaust manifold, check to make sure all the bolts are undone, there are about 10-11 of them, the last 2 on the drivers side are a real bitch.
Good luck

trying to remove my wifes' friends 2.4 from her 99sunfire having the same issue all the bolts are removed that we can see and we separated the tranny case from the engine and the mother @!#$ still wont come off, there is about 1 1/2 inch gap between the casing

its being a real pain in the ass were removing the engine to replace the @!#$ heads, talk about idiotic thank you GM.