i've never been inside of one of these things before. its fully removed sitting on my table and it looks like going around removing the 15 or so bolts that go around the perimiter i should be able to remove just the bellhousing end of the transmission. is that right? is there something else that has to be removed first for that half to come off? it seems to be sticking on the differential area the rest seems as though it wants to cooperate. looking at pictures of the internals im becoming worried that i will have to remove all components from the gearbox end before i'd ever get the bellhousing to come off. i'd appreciate input from one of you that've had this thing open before. all i'm really trying to do in all of this is get a glimpse of the innards for any signs of obvious damage and prep this transmission for install with my eclipse bellhousing as opposed to the neon parts it came with from the junkyard. thankyou!

http://www.2gnt.com/?d=3.55

That should help.

When I separated mine it just took some time, and look for the right place to pry it open. I used a rubber mallet to kinda separate it a little bit. After all the bolts are taken out it is just a matter of patience.

Be really careful when separating the trans (don't force a screw driver into an opening), if you chip the mating surface of the gearbox and the bell housing, you are gonna leak transmission fluid down the line, I know because that is what happened to me.

Hope that helped.

sure enough... worked great! it was just being stubborn, thank you!