What car did it come out of ? I can look it up in alldata for you. If its anything like a T5 you need to take the tail shaft section off to be able to remove the top plate.
Well, here is the rest of the story. My second gear synchronizers have the high RPM problem that appears to be so common on these trannys. A co-worker has a T-45 that he took out of his GT and he said it was fine but it lost 3-4 gears. Said he took the front off and could see that one of the forks was broken off. I'm thinking of getting this trans and fixing it to put in my Cobra. I've been told I might need to change the tail housing, (or swap it from my old trans) because the rear mount is a little different between GTs and Cobras, but if the whole thing has to come apart I may be as well off rebuilding mine.