Auto to Manual Conversion Guide

[Alfadog]

240K AUTO TO MANUAL CONVERSION GUIDE

What to do - and what not to do!

Alright so today we had a crack at swapping the manual gearbox from my parts car 240K to my car which is currently auto. I decided to write this for two reasons - firstly to have a record of what we did in case I ever do it again and secondly to give you guys some tips if you do it... Anyway, firstly and definitely most importantly I'd like to thank some people. My good friends Steve and Victor for coming along to help with the whole thing and Victor's dad for lending us a big mother jack, tools and some jack stands. I'd also like to thank Peter (440K on these forums) for coming over on a Saturday to help guide us younglings through the whole thing. He was invaluable for the team. He knew exactly what he was doing and I'm sure without him we would probably be still out there......... So thankyou!!

Also we were very lucky with the weather. It was raining most of Friday and the forecast was for rain through the weekend. We got a bit of rain in the morning but none for the rest of the day. We worked in the garage anyway so it didn't matter, but it gave us plenty of room to clean stuff etc. Let's hope it's the same next weekend because no, we did not get it all done today. Keep reading and you'll find out why! I'm going to write this whole thing in bullet point form with all the major points, or else it'll end up as some huge essay that no one will want to read.

Day 1 - Saturday 21/01/06

- Sprayed WD-40 around a day earlier to soak.

- Drained the gearbox oil.

- All bolts came off reasonably easily, except for the exhaust ones up near the manifold. Turns out we didn't even need to take those off as we could just bend the exhaust out of the way a bit after detaching it from the rear. When we do my car we will try a slightly more delicate method, but for the parts car it worked a treat!

- Undid the whole driveshaft - had to jack the back up and rotate the rear wheel half way to get to the bolts on the underside of the shaft joint.

- Undid all the cradles with the gearbox one just slightly still on so that we could lower it when needed.

- Put a jack under the engine to hold it up while taking the gearbox off.

- Put a jack under the gearbox and nudge the gearbox off a bit until it's free - then slowly lower the jack at the same time as stablising the gearbox. Easier said than done!

- Gearbox was covered in oily greasy mess. It was absolutely BLACK when it came out. This is why you have degreaser, a big brush and a toothbrush!

- Flywheel is to be machined during the week.

- The new clutch was not the same as the old one. We measured and it is slightly thicker as well as larger in diameter - the Repco guy is sorting it out on Monday but I think it will turn out to be a 260Z 2+2 if what Stephen said is anything to go by. We imagine this was not stock and had been replaced at some stage... so I guess if you have the choice, try not to buy your clutch before you know what size your old one is The new one may have fitted... but I'd rather have the beefier clutch anyway. It was then that we decided no more work could be done today.

- IMPORTANT! The pedal boxes are NOT the same. There is a small L bracket that acts as a stopper for the clutch pedal, my car does not have this. Options here were to swap the whole pedal assembly or try to fab something up for the stopper. We tried to get the pedal box out of the old car but it's more trouble than it's really worth. I'm going to attempt to make a bracket during the week...

- I'm also going to restore the pedals themselves during the week.

- The circlip holding the clutch pedal on is a bitch... took a while but eventually Steve got it. I think he used needle nosed pliers?

- Going to also buy a new clutch master cylinder as the old reservoir cap didn't fit on very well... and of course you can't JUST buy the reservoir. Probably a good idea to replace it anyway, it's only $40.

- I'm also going to go to Nissan during the week to try to get a hold of some rubber boots, as the old ones were very worse for wear.

So, that was today. We made excellent progress and I'm sure if you tried you could do all of this in a morning. I was looking forward to trying to get it all done in one day, but alas we couldn't continue. I'm not phased though, at least this gives us enough time to get everything restored, finished and correct. I've waited years to make this car manual, I can wait another week!!

I will continue this thread as progress is made. Peter feel free to add anything if I have forgotten something...

Here are a few pictures I just took. Sorry we do not have any progress pictures, but it was impossible with the amount of dirt and muck that was on our hands.

[ncz]

Lachlan, sounds like you guys had a good time. Rainy days in the garage with other Z buddies working on your baby. I think thats what I'm going to do today. Need to go pick up some refreshments first!!! Thanks for the running updates, good bud of mine saw me working on mine and come to find out his Dad has a carbed 280 automatic in great shape thats just sitting in his garage. His Dad has offered it to him but he doesn't like the auto. So I told him we could switch it out, he was all about it then. So we will use your experience as our guide. Have fun

[Alfadog]

Thanks Tom! I had a great time. Hope it can be of some use... however I will just point out that we are working on two 240K's - not Z cars - so it won't be exactly the same. I will edit the original post to make that point clearer

[kyteler]

Question; Why would you need a stopper for the clutch pedal? to stop it coming back up too far??

All I did was change the pivot arm across my clutch/gears work fine without any crazy stopper.

[Alfadog]

Interesting thought - we assumed you'd need one otherwise the spring would just pull it up further? I'll have to have a closer look

[ncz]

240K, Now I get it Lachlan!! Well I bet the refreshments will interchange!! Any more progress?

[440k]

Yes, it was a good day. Felt good to get back into a bit of serious "mechanic-ing" - been a few years since I've had the opportunity to do much of it. The old car is indeed greasy. some components had over a centimetre of grease / sludge built up on them over the years. Of course a large portion of it ended up on our clothes / hands.:cross-eye

As you said, probably not a bad thing that the clutches didn't match up - gives you time to get all the parts properly sorted.

On the clutch pedal stopper, you could probably get away without one, but it might make the pedal sit way too high, and give it a lot of play. I had all kinds of trouble in my Magna with the adjustment of the pedal. It had to be exactly spot on, or the clutch felt like crap (more so than normal, anyway)

A couple of other things I'd suggest before bolting it all together:

-Buy a couple of litres of new gearbox oil (Castrol VMX80 is a good, thin heavy duty gear oil - allows for fast changes without making the box too baulky). After all the hard work, you don't want to put the crappy old oil back in (although I admit it didn't look - or smell - too bad)

-As I suggested, buy a rebuild kit for the slave cylinder, as it's totally shot. The bore looked good, and might just need a very light clean with a scouring pad (plastic) or maybe some 1200 grit wet and dry. The rebuild kit will most likely consist of the piston seal and a rubber boot, so should be pretty cheap.

- Clean all the clutch and flywheel bolts (maybe degrease them, hit them with a wire brush if necessary to clean the threads up), and hit them with CRC to protect them till you put them back in. This always makes it easier to put things back together. Remember the old adage - cleanliness is next to godliness.

- It's worth picking up a new gearbox rear seal. Nothing worse than going through all the hard work only to find that the gearbox leaks oil. Again, easy to do with everything out of the car.

Before bolting the gearbox back in, make sure you take the gearbox filler plug out, just to make sure it DOES come out. Nothing worse than trying to fill the box through the shifter hole if the filler bung doesn't come out.

If I think of anything else, I'll add it to the list. At this stage, I should be able to come and give you a hand again.

Cheers

Peter

[Alfadog]

Thanks Peter, I went back to Repco today to try to sort this out. He rang up the PBR peolpe and they gave him some advice... apparently it is the same as an S14 Silvia cluch.......... it is coming in this afternoon but I won't be able to check it until tomorrow morning. I am not hopeful...

Steve is going to come over this Thursday (Australia Day) so we can get started on the dissasembly of my auto trans. If you could still make it on Saturday that would be excellent

P.S. I went to Nissan to see if they had the rubber boot that goes around the metal in the centre where the gearstick comes up. They can't get one. I don't know what to do about that :/

[kyteler]

Boot-Control Lever

74963-S0102

[sakijo]

Lachlan,

When you get the flywheel machined, have them check the balance. Sometimes, they're a bit out of balance. Also, check your engine rear crankshaft seal and replace that if necessary while the tranny is down.

P.S. I went to Nissan to see if they had the rubber boot that goes around the metal in the centre where the gearstick comes up. They can't get one. I don't know what to do about that :/

Is this the one that seals to the floor? If it is, the Z one may fit. I think the holes are all about the same.

[Alfadog]

Thanks for the part number Michael (gunna have to get one of those books some day). It might help when I'm trying to find one...

Miles (and Peter), is the gearbox rear seal the same as the engine rear crankshaft seal? What is that...?

Flywheel has been machined, I will pick it up tomorrow. I bought oil, fluid, and some black paint for the pedals. Ordering in new clutch master and slave cylinders so they should arrive tomorrow. All bolts are now soaking in degreaser too.

Tomorrow I will begin restoring the pedals, pick up all the parts I ordered and have another go with Repco about this clutch. I do not think it is right but you never know... And if I find out what this seal is I'll try to pick one of those up too

Also, what should I use to block the bottom two outlets for the auto trans cooling?

[kyteler]

Crankshaft-Oil Seal for rear of block

12279-A4600 or

12279-21010

Seal-Oil-Rear Extension (Transmission output shaft)

32136-U0100