Got the transmission out from under the car today. Wasn't as bad as I thought. Fortunately, most of the ATF had already leaked out, so there was no big mess to deal with.
The job was pretty straight forward. I probably didn't do this the best way possible, but it worked. I put the rear end up on jack stands and unbolted the driveshaft at the pinion flange. Two of the bolts were facing straight down at the ground so those were easy. Then I had to rotate the driveshaft 180' to get the others.
Here's where I'll share a moment of stupidity with the world.
Initially, the driveshaft wouldn't turn because the trans was in Park. No problem. So I open the door, move the gear shift selector into Neutral, crawl back under the car, but the driveshaft still won't budge. After a few minutes of fiddling and confusion, I realized I'd already disconnect the selector cable from the trans. DUH! I moved the selector on the trans case and of course, the driveshaft turned freely.
When I removed the driveshaft from the rear of the trans, no fluid leaked because most of it had already drained (leaked) out, which was nice.
Next was getting the torque arm disconnected. This took a little though because I couldn't figure out if the mount stayed with the trans or not. Turns out it does. There a cap that clamps the torque arm to the mount, so I undid the two 13MM bolts holding that "clamp" against the arm and slid the arm over, up and out of the way.
During all of this the catalytic converter and the crossover pipe were still hanging there and getting in the way. I'd loosened the clamp at the front of the converter weeks ago but the pipe would not budge. I hit it, pulled it, tried to twist it -- nothing worked. So I disconnected the converter from the rear exhaust pipe and had to remove the converter and the crossover pip as one piece. The converter is attached to a rubber hanger that in turn is attached to the trans. I figured I could just slide the converter off of that hanger. Nope. Again, there are three 13mm bolts that bolt the converter to the hanger. Once I got that off, the converter and crossover were on the ground. I tried disconnecting the AIR tube from the converter, but the flare nut (like the fuel lines between the TBs on the intake) was frozen sold and I had to break the tube to get it disconnected. Once the AIR tube was out of the way, I was able to slide the converter and crossover out from under the car.
The last step was getting the trans itself lowered and out from under the car. I don't have a trans jack, so I've had the trans balanced for weeks on a square piece of wood using my second floor jack. Once I was sure I had everything was clear, I took out the trans mount bolts and started gently lowering the trans. Since the using the sheet of week to balance the trans was a little shaky, I had my daughter gently start lowering the jack while I stood in the engine compartment making sure the trans didn't slide off. The trans was easy to handle this way and we got it lowered without a problem. With the jack safely down and the trans safely balanced, I disconnected the two trans cooler lines.
The the trans itself was tilted forward because the jack isn't flat. This worked to my advantage because it allowed me to more easily slide the wood and the trans down on to the floor. I then put some cardboard down and slid the trans off the wood on to the cardboard, raised the front end up a few more inches, and pulled the trans out.
The trans had some yellow paint marker on the top side which, to me, screams junkyard replacement. I know the previous owner had the trans worked on numerous times so it wouldn't surprise me in the least if some shop changed it out at some point. Either way, I plan to find a local shop and have them go through the whole unit.