i'm going to swap transmissions in my 97 legacy Lsi. only person i've talked to that used a trans jack only used one of those trans mission jack adapters for a jack and he said it sucked for a subaru transmission, couldn't get it to work right.

 

anyone else with any experience using a trans jack?

I have one of the Harbor Freight scissor type, tranny jacks. It's decent, but too high to stick the trans on and roll it under the car unless you get the car 3 feet in the air.

 

What I've found that makes things much easier, especially doing it on your own it to use an engine hoist. Extend the boom as far as it will go and then hoist down between the engine and the firewall. this will allow you to take up the bulk of the weight up front, then get the trans jack (or a smaller hydraulic jack) under the tail.

What I've found that makes things much easier, especially doing it on your own it to use an engine hoist.

awesome, i totally forgot about that, but i recall you mentioning that before. excellent idea. i can drop a transmission so fast that it does not make sense to pull the motor.

awesome, i totally forgot about that, but i recall you mentioning that before. excellent idea. i can drop a transmission so fast that it does not make sense to pull the motor.

I got the harbor freight scissors jack and it works fine with 6 ton jack stands under the frame rails. You WILL have to shimmy the tranny out from under the car, however. It's still a little tall, but worked fine. The jack has to be cenetered side-to-side or it will flop/collapse on the heavy side a bit

 

I just finished fixing the separator plate and reinstalled the tranny. I'd do it the same way again. The platform on the jack makes it pretty easy to tip and align the tranny going in (blocked up in the front with apiece of 2x4). Be sure to support the front of the engine. I hung mine from a long 2x4 over top the AC bracket with a hook bolt through it, blocked up from the "frame" rails by the battery and ABS unit. Tightening the hook bolt let me alignthe engine to the tranny as it went in on the stub bolts.

 

I had limited floor space and no room to push around a cherry picker.

I used an actual tranny jack when I did my clutch. Works good.