the owner of the ar, Jorge aka beatdown91ls
showing his love for auto trannies
and myself looking not so happy as the column is stabbing me in the back :bang:
aside from “flywheel issues” and a torque qrench that was a PITA to use, everything went pretty smooth. the few things that we did change from Shenrie’s writeup were we did not take the dash out we took the column down and slipped the necessary heater ducts out of the way. Reinstalling them was more difficult, but successful. Although Jorge is currently having issues with the tranny that was installed, the swap in itself was performed successfully. For all the pics click here and there are also a few pics i took of how i reccomend to take the guage bezel off.
as far as the mounts go i didnt do too much on that aside from removing the old ones. The other 3 amigos did most of the install of the new tranny I handled the guage cluster, old pedal assembly removal, and a little on the old tranny removal.
For those of you with the mount questions. The front and rear mounts were fine. Although Jorge went to the dealer to get the front mount for a manual tranny, we double checked the AT with the MT and they were identical. As for the mount on the passenger side, we inserted spacers to adjust the height of the motor. If you fail to do this your motor will sit up about 1in too high. After inserting the spacers it lowers to proper height. Like Gen2ls/vtec said, the swap was a success. The only thing bad about the whole thing was that Jorge (beatdown91ls) got ahold of a bad tranny.
Nice pics! Way better than mine are turning out, glad someone finally took pics of the swap. No pics of installing the actual shift linkages though? Did you need to enlarge the hole in the chassis where the auto shifter sat, or drill any new holes to bolt in the torque rod’s rear bushing, or was the shift linkage install completely straightforward? I’m installing my linkage tomorrow if all goes well (damn weather sux here lately). Again, awesome pics!
yeah we kinda took pics in spurts- the times where everyone was in a zone and doin there thing we werent takin any pics. I know Jorge finished the job on his own late the second day and we were all kinda tired after a while. It was cool to get to know all of y’all a little better I think this swap just takes time and a little bit of concentration. The hardest part for us i think was gettin that damn auto tranny away from the torque converter- VERY frustrating- we were takin a crowbar to that $hit and just pushin it around and around. I’m not sure if it was still connected to something but I think it just eventually came loose.
Hey “SPIKIUS” about your question regarding the hole in the chassis for the auto shifter, No you do not need to enlarge it at all. The only 2 things you have to do is …
1- removed the plate that hangs down(just in front of the hole).
you’ll know what i’m talking about when you get under there.
2- The two holes that are on the back auto shifter hole, need to
be drilled a little inward. These holes are where the rubber
bushing attaches to the chassis.
Ok, cool, the hole for the shifter was my main concern because I recall the manual holes being a bit more round whereas the auto hole is sort of D shaped, so I was concerned the auto hole might not allow full movement of the shifter. Good to know it fits! Thanks for clarifying as well, good to know that I will need to drill new holes for the rear torque rod bushing. Thanks for the info!
In the above image, you need the mount itself, part #4, and the plate that goes on it, part #9. You will then need to put shims between #9 and the transmission. I used roughly 1 1/4" worth of shims. I used some large nuts and a couple washers to do the shimming. I used 12x1.25x60mm bolts for attaching the transmisson to the plate. Just get 3 12x1.25x60mm bolts and get a bit more than 1 1/4" of shims for each bolt (just so you have extra shims if you end up needing them.
okay good thing…the trans came with a plate. one more quick question…i already took out everything needed to put the pedals in, and just wondering if i actually need to remove the gauge cluster too. i’ve had problems in the past busting the speedo (2x)…
No need to remove the cluster if you don’t want to swap it and got the pedals out ok. Just leave the cluster in place if you want. If you want more slack in the speedo cable try pushing some through from the engine compartment with the speedo cable disconnected from the transmission.
looking not so happy as the column is stabbing me in the back :bang:
I think this swap just takes time and a little bit of concentration. The hardest part for us i think was gettin that damn auto tranny away from the torque converter- VERY frustrating- we were takin a crowbar to that $hit and just pushin it around and around. I’m not sure if it was still connected to something but I think it just eventually came loose.
