Ok, so how did you get it out? I've been searching for a while and no one seems willing to post the step by step for this. I spent nearly 4 hours last night trying to get the damn thing out of 2003 Protege5 and finally had to give up and just put it back together. There's no room at the top...unless, like someone said, dismantle everything up there. It wouldn't come out the bottom because the axle and steering components were in the way. Some have said to remove the axle...but that alone is a b*tch of a job and requires special tools.

I'm about to pay a shop to do this...but I would really like to know what you did to get yours done.

 

Wow. This is old.
Ok, I dont remember all the steps. But I do remember that I got it out the top. I had to be very careful not to push to hard on the A/C line. But It came out that way. You have to turne it in al kind of ways to get it out. And a lot of wiggeling.
Let me know how is gose.

 

Yea, I was afraid of that. I read a comment this morning that was something like the 2 rules of auto repair:

1) Once you break something you then know the correct way to remove it.
2) It will be so long until you do it again, you'll have forgotten how.

I will take a look and see if I can figure out how to get it out from the top. The car has a strut bar on it and I think, clearly, that will have to come off for starters.

Thanks for the info. I'll post up if/when I get it out.