Well I finally got the Coupe's engine out. The most important lesson of the day was: don't use a single jack to lower an engine! I cut a piece of plywood to bridge the three lowest points of the subframe, and set the jack at what I thought was the balancing point of the whole thing. Well I was wrong. No damage; just a lot less graceful than I would prefer. I guess some sort of BIG scissor jack, with a 12x12 base and top minimum, would be nice. Does harbor frieght or other such place have an appropriate, but cheap, gadget?
I knocked the roll pin out of the shifter with a flat screwdriver, slightly smaller than the diameter of the hole. A bolt or metal rod would have been easier though. The pin survived regardless.
Looking at the joint in the shifter down near where the roll pin was, I see the origin of what I always considered to be a "sloppy" shift action - the joint has a lot of slack in it - that is, the top half of the joint can turn quite a bit before the bottom half starts to move with it. Is this a symptom of it's age? Can anything be done about it? Or is this as it should be?
Looking at the speedo cable, I find that the cable can easily slide out from it's sheath. Can this be right? Something tells me it got disconnected at the speedo end. Or, does the cable have a notch or pin at the speedo end that just came out, and will settle into place whenever the cable is pushed back up the sheath? The cable detached from the engine easily enough - no forcing involved.
Steve