Engine swap

If the engine code is the same on the vin # and the pcm is the same yes. You need to have the dealer look the engine and the pcm up to see if possiable.

Chrysler made a lot of cars that are really easy to work on. This isn't one of them. You'll have better luck dropping the engine and transmission out the bottom together with the cross member. Take the struts too by removing the three nuts on the top of each upper mount. You may get away without needing an alignment if you put everything back where it is now.

What are you trying to do?

I find it hard to believe you're going to get the transmission out the top.

There's no way to avoid removing the half shafts. The inner cv joints slide into the transmission. Those shafts are going to have to come out first, and that requires separating the lower ball joints and removing the axle nuts. You must never have any vehicle weight on those wheel bearings when the outer cv joints aren't in there and torqued to specs. Doing so will instantly damage the bearings and make them noisy. They'll sound like an airplane engine.

You need to raise the car up and support it solidly on jack stands under the frame, not the lower control arms. You're going to have to pry the control arms down to separate the ball joints. Then you can pull the struts away from the car and slide the outer cv joints out of the bearings. Then you can slide the inner joints out of the transmission.

You need to get a copy of the manufacturer's service manual and read through the pages of detailed instructions and line drawings to see if you want to tackle this job. Both half shafts have to come out. Remember, never have those axle nuts loose when there's weight on the wheel bearings.

I never replaced a transmission on one of these cars, but I helped a friend replace the timing belt on his '01 Cruiser a month ago, and just raising the passenger side of the engine six inches took us two nights. That allowed us to remove everything necessary to drop it six inches the other way to finish the job. We had WAY more stuff disassembled than I would have expected. I worked for a very nice family-owned Chrysler dealership for ten years, and in that time I replaced 13 transmissions, but none of them were even close to the difficulty I think you're in for. I hope I'm wrong.

You aren't even close! I told you about the manufacturer's service manual because Haynes and Chiltons only cover the easy stuff that most do-it-yourselfers can handle. Replacing most transmissions is WAY beyond that in difficulty, and your car is one of the hardest. The transmissions I've replaced when working at the dealership took over six hours with the cars on a hoist and all the right tools at hand.

I can't imagine how you expect to drop the transmission with the right half shaft still in it, but you must know something I don't. I've only been working on cars since the late '70s. You are going to have to remove both axle nuts, the lower ball joint pinch bolts, pry both lower control arms down to separate the ball joints from the spindles, pull the struts / spindles away from the car to slide both outer cv joints out, then slide both half shafts out of the transmission. Have a drain pan ready because about a quart of transmission fluid will run out of the transmission.

If the inner cv joints don't slide out of the transmission easily, don't tug on the shafts. Wiggle them up and down as you pull. If that doesn't work, get behind them with a pry bar to pop them out. There are lock wires or lock tabs in the ends of the inner joints to hold them together, but tugging too hard will still let the joints pull apart. That can allow the rollers to fall off and the needle bearings will get lost. Some of those rollers are held onto the joint with lock rings, but most are not.

I never pulled a transmission from a PT Cruiser, but I'm sure you'll have to remove some type of inspection cover to get to the four flex plate bolts. That might require removing the starter and / or center engine mount. Remove the cooler lines, shifter cable, electrical connector for the solenoid pack, and the wires for the sensors. Unbolt the driver's side mount, then the transmission bell housing from the engine block, pry the transmission away from the engine, then lower it on a floor jack.

That all might sound easy, but expect to spend the better part of a day on this. I know there will be a lot of other stuff that has to be removed because every time I see my friends do this, there's all kinds of brackets and sub-assemblies laying all over the work bench and on the floor. When we replaced these at the dealership, the manufacturer would not warranty the rebuilt ones unless we flushed the cooler with a special machine. They knew that a failed transmission left metal filings and fiber clutch plate material in the fluid, and that debris would take out the next transmission. If you don't do that, you could be in for doing this repair again.

If you have a steering wheel shimmy during acceleration when the repair is done, I have a diagnosis for that. If you give up with struggling to get the lower ball joints apart and take the struts off the spindles instead, the car will have to be aligned later. While it should not be necessary, if something gets disturbed that results in an off-center steering wheel and / or a pull to one side, that is also cause for an alignment.

You're referring to the lower ball joint stud, right? That is held in with a pinch bolt. Once that bolt is removed, where it went through is slotted. You can pound a flat chisel into that slot to spread it a little.

If you only loosened that pinch bolt but didn't remove it, you have to because the ball joint stud has a groove that bolt goes around.