We'll my new Autogear M22W arrived today. I"m walking around with a smile on my face.

Question: I'm thinking about swapping out the 700R4 without pulling the engine. What do you think? I'm going to have to install the Z-bar, cut a new speedo hole, cut the shifter hole, and on and on. Should I just pull the motor and tranny together? I won't be changing the motor till next spring. I will pull motor and tranny out together then.

What am I getting into?

congrats to you. you dont need to remove motor to do tranny.for z-bar put pivot on motor than bar in and bolt it on side of frame.its on the outside of frame (you can get to the 3 bolts from side of car) if you dont have hole for bar going to inside of car there allready. remove master than you can drill that hole.you dont need to drill a new hole for speedo.you need longer cable since it should be on the passenger side now.what style shifter did you buy. some older pieces of garbage put shifter to side of tunnel. while better shifters go right in middle of tunnel as a console would go right over it.if your floor has never been butchered or replaced. well my 67 had on tunnel a reinforced plate but covered over since from stock was a powerglide.that just should be cut out in middle of it.i dont know if aftermarket floors or tunnels has that reinforcement in there.(never had the pleasure of doing a floor yet)crossmember same. driveshaft same except if you bought a big yolk m22. than you need a 400 yolk to put on your driveshaft.BUY a good pilot bushing not a cheap jap bushing.grease it well.to find about shifter position bolt it to tranny first measure front of trans to shifter measure from bell to floor drill little hole. put trans in eye it up before cutting up floor. easy to fix little hole than cutting a 4-4 area out and fix that.

The reinforcing plate around the shifter hole is a 67-68 deal; 69s didn't have it.

How far away from the firewall is the top of the bellhousing now? Depending on which frame stand/motor mount combo your car has, it can be pretty tight getting the top 3 bolts.

You may find that by the time you support the back of the engine, then pull the trans, then find you have to drop the back of the engine to get at the bolts and get the bell off over the TC (so you have to disconnect the rad hoses, pull the dist, etc.), then get on it with the impact to get the flexplate bolts out, then....

Of course, to pull the motor you'll probably want to take the hood off, and maybe the radiator too.

I'd pull the motor and trans out together, but that's me. To save doing it twice, I'd wait til I was ready to freshen the engine. But that's easy for me to say... I have 3 pedals already ;)

no you take torque converter with tranny out with it. take the cap off and you will be fine. long extension with a swivel will do fine.

I believe I've collected all I need except a driveshaft. I know I have to have a longer one because the 700r4 is longer than the 4 speed.

My biggest concern about not pulling the engine is that the headers will be in the way of the z-bar install. I looks like a real tight fit right now even to get to the upper bellhousing bolts on the tranny.

I guess I could break out the saws all. I'll be doing that with the cooler lines anyway. The way it is right now I can't pull the starter without a cut and splice job on the cooler lines.

I recently did an auto to manual tranny swap and left the motor in. I did have to remove the drivers side header though for better access. I kept the power booster assembly in their as well and still was able to get to everything relatively fine when installing the Z bar. I think the most difficult part was getting those 3 little Hex head screws that are for the cover that goes over the clutch rod linkage hole in the fire wall. I recall getting a little creative with a socket there and scratching up the hands a bit. Aside from that (which wasn't even too bad) it went fine with the engine in place. All in all though I think it's going to be fairly close to the same effort and time when you way the pluses and minuses.

P.s.

I really savored those moments of ripping out the old auto tranny lines, cables, cooler and misc. "crapola." That was a great feeling. Enjoy it!

Measure twice - cut once.