well, I hope this is of help to you as I type this out.. here goes

to pull the tranny is actually pretty simple. Start by pulling out your intake/battery, as well as the battery tray. Unbolt the starter. To remove the axles, take off the wheel, then the axle nut, then the bottom of the pickle fork as well as the top, the tie rod end and the lower control arm and sway bar. Lift the hub assembly off of the axle, go up by the tranny itself and use a flat head screwdriver against the small slots to get the shaft out of the clip, once it breaks past the clip it'll slide right out.

Now remove the bottom crossmember by unbolting the front roll stopper mount, the 2 17mm bolts up front, and the 2 14mm bolts in the rear. there will be 2 brackets that go from the trans to the oil pan area, remove those, then remove the inspection cover on the flexplate. Turn the crank and remove all your converter bolts (total of 4). Make sure you mark the flexplate so you now how it goes back together. Take off the rear roll stopper mount next, and then unbolt the side tranny mount. Take out all the bellhousing bolts left in the trans holding it to the motor. It will first need to slide towards the driver side, then slightly towards the front of the car, and then down. The motor will be suspended by the pass. side mount and that's it, so I suggest bracing it up once you have the tranny out.

Either the motor or the trans is going to have to come out to replace the flexplate. I can't see you getting enough room in there to undo the 8 or 10 bolts on the crank, and then lining up the new flexplate will be damn near impossible. Plus i'd want to inspect the converter as well to make sure it hasn't pulled any threads on the bolts in that or anything, so it's best IMHO to just pull the trans.

All in all it's not to difficult. I had my old tranny out, and the 3spd modified to go in in roughly 1.5 days (had to make brackets and what not), so in and out could be done in a day with ease.

If you want, I'll actually copy step for step from the service manual, but that was just off the top of my head.

97 Dodge Avenger
a670 reverse manual 3spd swap, 3400 stall, 2.2 stroker, zex setup, 8 fuel injector setup, t3/t4, turbonetics wastegate, and a slew of other mods to go fast BEST ET: TBD
03 srt-4
Stage 1, exhaust, TB, map clamp, wga and mbc. BEST ET: 12.935 @ 110