87 T2 13B Tranny install issues
 

I am assuming most of you have swapped the clutch/tranny or atleast had it down. I dropped the tranny no issue, car is about 14" in the air. Swapped the clutch, no issue. Here comes the fun part go to put the tranny back in, can get the splines in, but it doesn't seem to line up. Talked to a guy who said he did one on a RX-7 years ago, and had to drop the motor to put the tranny back in. He said the weight of the tranny held the back of the motor down, and once you remove it the back of the motor lifts making it impossible to get the alignment back. I am thinking about jacking the front of the motor trying to twist the back down, but I am not sure if this will work. Also we just pulled the shifter straight out of the center console left the rest attached to the tranny, but that shouldn't be the issue. Have searched for about 2hrs. any help would be great.

It can be a frustrating PITA sometimes. With the tranny removed, the engine tilts back toward the firewall, not forward as you discribed. Most of the weight is behing the motor mounts toward the flywheel. You should leave the motor hanging from the two mounts with no support in the back. So if you jack the motor, jack it from the back so its level. I don't know if you are jacking the tranny up into place or if you are bench pressing it up there, but I've run into this problem before. Its most likely that the tranny input shaft is not mating up with the pilot bearing correctly. Get it as close as you were getting it, and carefully wiggle the tranny while applying constant forward pressure. Be patient. Its hard to see if the tranny and motor are at the correct allignment because you can't stand back far enough to see them both in relation to each other. So leveling the motor and being patient is what I found works best. Good luck!

how heavy is the stock t2 tranny?

I just did a N/A to TII swap in my vert. I had the car on a lift at my job so it was 7 feet in the air... I jacked up the front of the motor so that the rear was tilted downward. I found it was easier to get the motor lined up that way since the trans didn't rub or hit any part of the trans tunnel. once it was lined up, i grabbed the longest bolt from the bottom left, closest to the starter motor, bolted it to the top left, and bolted the bottom right bolt. With those two in place, i was able to wiggle it forward. I didn't bolt them up and tighten them all the was i just threaded them on there so they could be in place...