Haynes manual says to drain tranny fluid (noooo!) then remove rear tranny support and lower rear of tranny (nooooo!) to get to bell housing bolts and upper starter mount bolt- yikes- is there an easier way? Im sure there would be if it was a manual tranny!

 

Been there, done that ('88 XJ6 auto) and unfortunately the answer is noooo! This job is awful hard to do at home on jackstands. I would recommend other options, plus Haynes leaves out other removals you need to do.

 

yeah- after looking at it today I knew it was going to be tough- an amazing amount of work just to change a starter- they just assume you can spend a lot of money on repairs I guesse