You can pull the cover off with the trans in the car but you will hate life reinstalling it. I would plan on ordering all new synchronizers and bearings. Check the bearings between the input shaft and the output shaft/ the one with all the gears on it.Watch out they will go every where when you pull it apart. Don't remove the intermediate shaft unless it feels sloppy and you have a lot of patients getting all the bearings back in it. Also plan on installing a new tail shaft bushing. My transmission always got stuck in 2nd gear i tried to rebuild it using 2 transmissions into 1. That was a bad idea don't try it.:read2: I ended up having brewer performance build me a regular 4 speed with the oversize input bearing so it would bolt up.