Well thanks for the info, the FAQ, and the confidense.

This one was no doubt a 5/5 in difficulty, especially by myself on the garage floor.

My main hicups were :
1.. Removing the small atf lines (took them off only at the cooler).
2.. Removing the torque converter (should have read the manual to see there were other bolts there)
3.. Manipulating that really heavy tranny, no tranny jack, no extra hands.

As for the seal, it was original, and it was TOASTED. The inner lip was basically scraped off and non-existant. The rubber was hard and cracked apart. There essencially was no seal. I wish I took a pic to show you. I never expected to see that. I think this all happened last summer when the head gasket sprung a leak coolant into oil, and that abbrasive mixture killed it.

The lines would not come off the tranny, they turned, but the piping would not spin out of the fitting. The dipstick tube came off no issue. I therefore had to keep the tranny under the car with me, with the lines bending up into the engine bay, was tight, but doable.

I took the atf pan out for a new filter and gasket. The filter was pretty messy. The fluid was pretty dark, smelly, changed about 100K ago. The magnet at the bottom of the pan (nice idea) had some crud on it, I cleaned it all up nicely. I washed atf out of my hair all week.

The bellhousing bolts came off ok with three long extensions and a 18" bar.

Exhaust came off nicely at the header to downpipe, new gasket, reused the nuts, no issues.

I used an extra floor jack, the original spin jack, and some blocks of wood to get the heavy thing back up. slowly aligning, resting, moving, got it into position to run a couple bolts, after that, the headache was over. Took a good 1.5 hours to get it up again, but little muscular strain, just patience.

Q: I did not remove the seal housing at the back of the engine; does this gasket ever leak too? It looked clean.

Preliminary check this morning after a drive last night indicates all is leak free. Hurray!

The job took:
2 hours Friday;
6 hours Saturday;
3 hours monday;
2 hours tuesday;
2 hours Wednesday.

Total 15 hours, myself, with patience.

Would I do it again? Yes, I would try to find a tranny jack though. Next time, a long day should do it. you need A LOT of clean rags for atf drips.