Some Advice? Front Drive Axle + Engine Mount

[mmukh001]

Hey guys,

I'm new here so bear with me!
So, I own a 1998 Toyota Corolla (NO WAY!!! crazy right?), which was recently involved in an accident thanks to my lovely little brother behind the wheel. It's actually been in bad shape for a while, but was running just fine up until the accident...it's more like the car that has been passed down from sibling-to-sibling 3 times now, so it's seen some abuse and all of our repairs are done as cheap as possible to keep the car running.

ANYWAYS, talked to a mechanic and was told that the front engine mount and front drive axle need to be replaced as the bare minimum to keep the car going from point A to point B. Now, I've bought a front drive axle assembly and a front engine mount...and I really want to do the work on this car myself. The thing is, I'm COMPLETELY new to auto repairs, aside from oil changes and other -basic- work. I've found some step-by-step guides online as well as some pretty informative videos.

Should I try to do this work myself? I'd have a friend of mine who went to auto-tech school there to help me (but he's never done a drive-axle replacement before), as well as a next-door-neighbor who works on cars as a hobby not too far away. If you guys think I can pull it off, do you have any tips or advice? Any help would be awesome. I really want to avoid paying a mechanic labor....and I also want to learn how to do repairs myself as it'd be saving me TONS of money in the long run.

Thanks a lot!

-Moe

[sam333]

Neither of these repairs are hard to do, but you NEED a manual and basic hand tools.