Do I have to pull the engine or can I do it without doing that?

 

How high can you get the car up in the air (lift available?
If so, you can pull the tranny from below. I can't imagine there being enough room to do it just on jack stands.

 

No lift and the garage space is less than ideal. I'd love to give this a go myself but I don't have the time or room (or capital if I screw up) to do this.

More or less this is just to confirm that just getting to the transmission isn't an easy task so I can tell my dad that this will never happen in our garage.