Some odd Clutch/driveline issues

[84sr54wd]

great pics, nice set up!

Thanks,,,,yeah that lift has enabled me to work on all kinds of things with my cars over the years. One of the best "tools" I ever bought for my garage. I own 9 cars, 4 motorcycles and 3 Seadoos and I have rigged it to work on a variety of things to do with them all.

[drege]

Dude I thing 3.5 feet height might actually hurt more than help, the transmission itself aint shit, the differential is a fraction of that, but mated together they are a real handful.
I have removed and replaced many a transmissions, and the easiest part is using your chest/abdomen/groin to catch, support and thrust the tranny up into place, you cannot do this in a sitting possession, take one of your oak log segments and sit on youir bum, sling the log up onto your shoulder, and slide it up onto a counter top - thats kind of what it would be like, except heavier, greasier and more exact, just do it normally, get a few cinder blocks of jackstands/ramps and maybe a willy creeper.
as for your drivetrain backlash, shuddering - whatever; just replace clutch disk and pressure plate.
Be careful when removing/replacing your transaxels and drive line (named propeller shaft in the FSM) if you damage your oil seals you will kick yourself in the ass as you'll have to replace them and topping off our transmissions is a pain in the ass when they leak. Also I'd just replace your input shaft bearing seal even if you don't think it needs it, and buy one from autozone and one from orileys, one of them will screw up and give you the wrong one - I forget witch one it is now, the new one will be rubbery and slide over the input shaft nice and snug, the old one will be harder like plastic and will have play on the input shaft journal.
You'll need a 31mm socket for your axel nuts and the input shaft can be used as a clutch plate alignment tool, in fact I'd not even use a plastic one as the nylon will have some give, and will cause alignment imperfections, in the face that you are installing a 5" shaft of steel into the crank end rather than the entire weight and girth of the transmission.

[drege]

Ops, seems my reply and advice was a little too late.
I guarantee if you were working on your back, wit the input shaft removed from the bellhousing you would have gotten it back in the first try.
You just need the bottom of the car about 1.8 feet off the ground.