Replacing transmission

I am far from being a gear head, but my father-inlaw and his father are both mechanics. My transmission went out of my 1991 with 185k on. I bought a new transmission at the junk yard for $150.

My question is will we have to pull the engine to get the transmission out?

No. The transaxle whether manual or automatic comes out from underneath the vehicle.

Aside from the top passenger side engine mount, the rest of the mounts that support the engine are on the transmission.

The engine must be supported from above to remove the transmission.

well the transmission has now been replaced. It was a lot work but we got it done. The gears are very tight and sort of whine but that will go away. The throw out bearing seems to be ratteling some. It was put in correct. Any ideas on the rattle?

I'm planning on attempting to rebuild the transmission on my brothers '97 Escort. I'm wondering if it's going to be extremely difficult first off and if it wouldn't be that hard the next thing I need to know is exactly where the transmission is located. I know I sound like I shoudn't be the one to work on it asking this but I pick up pretty quickly and can figure things out. Anything would be helpful.

The transmission bolts to the side of the engine, and is in front of the driver position. You should get the service manual for the car before you start a major job like a tranny replace. The actual Ford Service manuals often turn up on ebay.com, but the Chiltons and Haynes manuals are okay, just not as much detail.
My next advice would be to read the part of the manual dealing with what you want to do, and do it standing in front of the car, and looking for each item the manual talks about.
For a tranny remove/replace I use a simple hoist I made up from a cheap Chinese hand winch, and a large A frame; like a sawhorse but taller and wider. I had the front of the car jacked up, with heavy wooden blocks (6 by 6 and 4 by 4) under the car to support it just behind the front wheels.
And before you jack it up, you need to loosen up the hub nuts and the wheel lug nuts on both of the front wheels too. Because you have to take the axles out as part of tranny remove/replacement.
Good Luck... its easier than installing an extra bathroom in a house, though dirtier.

I'm in process of removing an auto tranny from a '97 Tracer/Escort. Having big trouble extracting shafts from tranny ... and I've removed a number of halfshafts in my day .. but these don't want to break loose and there is little "pinch room" around the inner joints to pry them away from the tranny housing.

I've already hyper-extended the RH axle ... the inner boot/joint came apart... so that axle will have to be replaced or repaired. The inner splined hub is still in the tranny.

I'm now going to detach steering rack from sub-frame and hang it up in the engine box ... and drop the exhaust... and then drop the sub frame. Then the tranny has clearance to come down even with axles attached. With the tranny lowered, there will room to deal with the axles.

Wish I had adopted this plan as soon as the axles were first seen to be a problem.

On my 94 I find that there is more of a lip to get a grip with a pry bar if I put it in from the top side. Rather than pulling the axle out, I drive a wedge between it and the tranny and it breaks free... then simply slides out.

I hadnt realized how easy the job was the way I did it.
I had to rebuild the automatic tranny in my 92 Escort, but took the engine out first. The engine was making a nice blue smoke cloud on start-up and wouldnt pass the emission test (turned out to be stuck oil control rings.) It had 192,000 miles on it.
I had already pried the passenger-side axle from the tranny using a truck tire iron from below - it wasnt difficult. I was NOT able to pry the driver-side axle out, due to lack of access. But it wasnt hard to hoist the tranny out with the axle still sticking from it. With the tranny on the bench it was easy to pry that remaining axle out with the tire iron. I didnt take the lower crossmember out of the car, not any of the steering parts.

Mighty, you've got me looking for a wedge ...

Denison, I recently rebuilt this engine ... so I chose to leave it in. Pulling the tranny downward wasn't so bad. It's on the floor now ... but I'm too tired to continue this day.

... BTW, are you guys talking automatics?

Yes, mine was an automatic. From the service manual it looked like removal of the manual was basically the same, but I dont know for sure.

Well, finally, I've got the tranny swapped out in the daughter's '97 Tracer. (Too many other things going on to work on it for any length of time.)

I ended up buying a rebuilt (by Fred Jones?) from Ford. With taxes, etc ... it was about $2300 IIRC. By the time axles, lower joints, a rod end, sway bar bushings, strg rack bushings, new fluid, etc, etc ... I probably spent $2800, or more, on the job.

Bad decision to replace instead of hauling to boneyard? Probably. But I'll feel better, as time goes by, if it stays together ... for a long time ...say, 200k miles or better ... so wish me luck please!

For now, it surely drives sweet!

Congrats 120nce on the tranny replacement. I just gotta admire you for having the car fixed instead of being hauled to the boneyard. She ought to go another 190k if nothing else breaks. I have 175k on the second timing belt. Am getting ready to put in the third. As you well know it is always more economical to fix what you've got rather than buy another car. I have been following this post and when I noticed it had been bumped up by a month I knew you had the tranny in.

Anyone could have scrapped the car and bought another. By fixing it yourself you have become one owner in a thousand. Or maybe one in ten thousand.
I get a warm feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction each time I or a member of my family uses a car that I have put back on the road. It is a nice feeling that money cannot buy. I dont think folks who merely buy a car and drive it ever experience the pleasure of ownership as much as those people who have done their own repairs.
Its also nice to be driving a car that is all paid for, and which is old enough that thieves probably dont want.

Thanks for reporting back.