Starter Replacement \ Removing Transmission Cooler Lines

[scott72]

This is probably a stupid question but I need to replace my starter, and my cooler lines are right underneath, my headers to the side of it. Not much room to work with.

Am I going to need to drain quite a bit of my tranny fluid beforehand, or will most of the fluid be cycled back to the tranny when cold?

Maybe buy some fittings to plug up the radiator side real quick once removed?

Also, I noticed some people saying the fittings on the tranny side are hard to remove with regular open ended wrenches. Am I going to need the crows foot wrenchs to get in there?

Haven't tried to remove them yet, but my starter started making a nasty grinding noise when hot.

Thanks for the help.