What have I done?

[Ping]

I had planned to change my automatic transmission fluid, filter & gasket over the weekend. Only when I started to take out the pan I realized there was a cross member that wasn't going to let me take the pan off. When I tried to remove the cross member it was rusted in Place.
Is there an easy way to remove that (without ruining it)? And even if I get it down will the exhaust keep me from removing the cross member?

Well after giving up and deciding to put in new fluid and come back to it later I noticed that putting in the amount of transmission fluid that the owners manual suggested it was way too much. I spent the next 20 miles driving down the freeway with a cloud of white smoke behind me. What is going on? I must be an idiot.

[Cbass94]

Hey Peter,
I can't figure out a way to get you the actual pages from the cd-rom manual I have, it says they are all read only and won't let me do anything with them. I looked at the transmission section again, however, and all it says for changing the fluid is drain it from the drain plug, and fill it in the fill hole. The fill hole is located on the side of the transmission pan so once you have drained everything out, you just fill it until it starts seeping out of the hole. Then put it in Park and let the engine idle for a few minutes. Step on the foot brake and move the gear lever through all the gears and put it back in Park. Check the fluid filler hole again and top up if necessary. When full, a small bead of oil should drip out of the filler hole. I could not tell if there was anything special that you needed to do in changing the gasket though. It did talk about the crossmember, but only in the section of "Removing the Gearbox." Let me know if you have any more questions.

[100th96cobra]

you can unbolt the bolts that hold the brace in thats under the transmission pan, but you also have to remove the exhaust y pipe because the brace wont pull down unless done so...and removing the y pipe is almost impossible unless you feel like drilling and tapping the stripped bolts from the header