I need to change the transmission on my 88 duke t-top car, so I need to drop the cradle. This will be the third time I have dropped the cradle on this car, so it's getting to be old hat.
I decided that you guys might like to see pictures of what is required to do this, but I thought of this after doing the work, so these will be "after the fact" pictures. And progress will be slow, as I usually can only work on this on Saturdays, weather permitting.
The first thing you need to do is pull the fuel pump fuse, start the car, and let it run until it dies. This is to relieve the presure in the fuel lines.
Then, starting on the passenger side of the engine compartment, remove the battery and the plastic battery shield, disconnect all ground connections in this area, and disconnect the fuel lines.
Disconnect the connections just aft of the battery, including the wires held on by two nuts below the connector shown in this picture. Put the nuts back on their studs for safe keeping.
Move to the driver side of the engine compartment, and remove the fuel pump and AC relays from the firewall. Put the screws back in their holes for safe keeping.
Remove any ground connections in this area.
Relieve all pressure in the AC system, and remove the AC lines where they connect near the side of the car. Put something over the exposed holes (I used some aluminum HVAC repair tape).
Remove the shift and select cables from the transmission.
Remove the fluid line from the clutch slave, and plug it with something.
Now working in the center area of the engine compartment, remove the coolant hose from the thermostat housing.
Remove the throttle plate from the intake manifold. The little wire going from this to the throttle body can fall out and get lost, so remove it and put it somewhere for safe keeping.
Remove all vacuum lines except the EGR line from the throttle body.
Remove the vacuum line that supplies brake vacuum.
The next area of work is under the car. Jack the car up by the cradle and put it on jack stands under the cradle.
Remove the nuts from the forward cradle bolts, but do not remove the bolts at this time.
Remove the hoses from the passenger side coolant tube. The smaller heater hose may not have to be removed, but it gets in the way of the cradle when it's dropping.
Remove the parking brake cable. On an 88, the parking brake adjustment is in front of the cradle, and the actuation cable goes through a hole in the cradle, so it must be removed. To do this, loosen the adjuster quite a bit, and put a spring compressor on one of the parking brake springs (at the calipers) to give you some slack. It's still not very easy, but easier with all the slack you can get.
Remove the brake lines at each rear wheel and secure them out of the way.
Remove the heat shield that is fastened to the lower fire wall. The AC lines pass between this and the firewall, so it must be removed.
(Not shown) There's a heater hose connected to the underside of the intake manifold. The stock connection for this is a "quick disconnect" connector that tends to corrode and be frozen with age. I had to replace mine with something else long ago. In any case, this hose needs to be removed.
That's all I have for now... more coming later.