I know no one cares, but here is the end of my tale.

I could not get the last tranny-to-motor bolt. The one that goes in the opposite direction. I could see it, but couldn't get it.

After a couple of days of cursing and fighting, I got my trusty angle grinder and sledge out and 'removed' the whole tranny and motor as one piece. Yes, it was quite a sight.

Anyway, after cursing every engineer, I discovered the reason. This motor had been replaced, and someone had made (or found) an alternate heat shield for the manifold on the firewall side. Did its job fine but blocked access to my infamous bolt.

Let me apologize to that one lonely engineer who does not take great pleasure in designing things to be 'non user friendly'.

I've never removed or replaced an engine, but I think I experienced a frustration similar to yours when I set out to replace the water pump on our '93 SSEi - there was 1 bolt hidden behind the alternator bracket, and to get that off there was at least 1 bolt that wasn't obvious (not to me, anyway). I even called a local Pontiac dealer, and they told me that replacing the water pump on this car is about the most difficult in the GM product line, so in this case it WAS intentionally designed that way.