Craig,

I think the work of removing the engine would take far more time than it
is worth.

Do you have the front of the engine tilted slightly downward?  I
suspended my engine with a chain attached to 2 2x4's spanning the engine
bay opening for removing my manual tranny for a clutch job.  Lowered the
front about 2-3" with a tilt as per instructions from Tom Carrington's
web page.   http://volksweb.relitech.com/clutch.htm

I still had some difficulty getting things to realign and go back
together.   When numerous attempts wouldn't quite go together right, I
got very frustrated.  Finally, I lowered the front just a bit more,
changed how I was supporting the tranny (don't remember what it was
though) and things aligned right and it just slid together.  I seem to
remember others on the list having some difficulty with this on manual
transmission reassemblies.  It is difficult to see all of the parts that
have to be aligned just right and a small error means it won't fit.  We
need patience and some luck to go along with careful alignment at this
point.

I realize yours is an automatic, but thought this might help anyway.
With some different support and maybe a helper, you should be able to
get it back together.  A second set of arms and hands under there might
also help to position the tranny so it will line up.

Good luck.

--
Sam Walters
Baltimore, MD

89 Syncro GL
85 Westy Weekender
84 Vanagon, original owner, soon to be retired, just too many problems

All incoming and outgoing email scanned by
automatically updated copy of Norton AntiVirus.