I think you are going about this the hard way. Your changing a standard transmission clutch?.
You don't have to completely remove the engine. You do however need to drop the rear of the cradle down enough that the transmission clears the frame rails.
From the top. Disconnect the radiator hoses, after draining the coolant. The wiring harness on the engine should be long enough to leave alone. Disconnect the dogbone/torque strut. On 87s and 88s the heater return hose is part of the right radiator hose. V6 85 and 86s the hose goes to a tube off the water pump. The other hose you remove later. I suggest removing the positive and negative battery cables and look for any ground straps that may interfere with lowering the rear of the cradle.
Block the front wheels. Carefully with jack stands (or the 4x4 setup)support the car at the jacking points. The jacking points are heavy metal brackets that cover the coolant tubes about 8 inches in front of the rear wheel openings. BEING CAREFUL NOT TO DAMAGE THE COOLANT TUBES.
With the A$$ end up. With the parking brake on. Remove the rear wheels. Remove the large axle nuts. Remove the pinch bolts on the rear lower ball joints. Loosen the front subframe/cradle bolts. Just loosen about 1/2 turn. You see why later. Leave the compressor alone. Do not remove the A/C hoses. Do not remove the front engine mount. Drain the gear oil out of the transmission. At this point you want to push the control arms down off the spindle then try to pop the axles out. The best way I have found is with a pry bar between the inner CV joint and the transmission case. Not on the seals. In a quick motion pop the axles free from the transmission and get them out of your way.
Remove any bolts from under the engine. Flywheel cover and lower engine to transmission bolts. You can remove the starter, but really isn't needed.
Remove the slave cylinder. But leave the hoses and lines connected to the slave cylinder. If there are brackets holding the lines to the transmission, remove them too. Remove the shift cables.
With the rear of the cradle supported with a jack. Remove the rear cradle bolts. Remove any exhaust springs or after market hangers that attach to the body of the car. The ones that attach to the cradle can be left alone.
Lower the rear of the cradle about 4 inches. Do not lower the front. You should now be able to reach the other heater hose easier and look for any part of the harness that may be getting tight. If you have to disconnect the harness and alternator cables at the bulk connector near the battery. If all looks clear, lower the rear of the cradle about another 6 inches. There should be a clear view of the transmission from the driver's side of the car now. To make things a little easier, remove the left caliper. Remove the left outer tie rod and remove the left strut. If it looks like enough room to remove the trans out the left side now, support the rear of the cradle with wood blocks. You should notice with the car up and the rear of the cradle down, the cradle is somewhat level. Take the jack you removed from the cradle and put it under the oil pan close to the flywheel end with a piece of wood to protect the oil pan. Raise the jack just enough to take the weight. Now you should be able to remove the transmission mounts. You may have to move the jack some to make sure the engine is stable. All you should have left holding the transmission, is the upper engine to trans bolts. They should be easy to get to now also. Remove them. The transmissions do tend to "stick" on the dowel pins and you may have to wiggle it around to free it from the engine. But you should be able to remove it from the left side of the car. After removing, inspect and clean the input shaft and clutch release hardware. Remove the 6 bolts holding the pressure plate to the flywheel. Inspect the flywheel. There are most likely going to be hot spots and I highly suggest you have it machined.
Your clutch kit should have an alignment tool to align the clutch disc, when installing, use it. Find two bolts about 2 inches longer then the trans to engine bolts with the same threads and cut the heads off. Install these in 2 easy to get to places on the engine. Those will assist you in aligning the transmission back up when you install it and help keep it from binding on the input shaft. When you get the trans back on, install 1 of the regular bolts and remove the cutoffs. The rest should be reverse of removal.
The Idea of this is to leave the engine in place on the cradle.
[This message has been edited by cmechmann (edited 06-14-2016).]
