Transmission Swap

When I took auto shop in high school we converted an push button '64 (I think) Lancer to a 3 speed manual. Although all the parts needed were readily available from the junkyard I seem to recall it was an immense amount of trouble. It would have been much easier to swap the other way.

If you find a manual trans car at the junkyard get EVERYTHING or see if they will sell you the whole car so you can haul it home. And the manuals.

You of course can find various manual trans that can be made to fit, and if you can find the parts manual see all the changes needed. You will need the clutch pedal, the mount, if it's hydraulic the master cylinder, there will be a slave cylinder or now they have the internal concentric cylinder, etc.

A very educational project although time consuming.

The problem is all the GOOD 5 and 6 speed manuals are high dollar. If you are highway driving today you want a 5 or 6 speed manual or a 4 speed automatic. Four speed manuals are mostly cheap because no one wants them, and rightly not. If it's off road only you may not care. Clark school bus transmissions can be had reasonable too, same reason, no wannum-they are HEAVY.

I can't believe anyone but a restorer or a Rolls Royce owner would F with a THM anymore. The 700R4 has four gears and with the good guy parts is damn near bulletproof.

Well..... this recollection was from more than 3 decades ago but I seem to recall we found that in addition to all the expected parts there were a number of parts that we did not expect that were different in the auto and manual transmission equipped. We got it done eventually but as I said it was a lot of trouble for not a lot of payback.

We later converted that sedan to a convertible and the following year cut it in half and made a trailer out of the back seat/trunk in cooperation with the boys over in the metal shop class. (same instructor). The 270 cid engine went onto an engine stand we built.

If you want the vehicle to be just as though it were factory stock then yes, there are a lot of little things. However, by using aftermarket parts you just get around a lot of that crap. For instance on GM vehicles the floor mounted auto trans turns the collar on the steering column so the ignition key doens't come out unless you are in Park, just like a column shift. Buy a Hurst shifter and screw it. Likewise on the auto-to-manual swap you can use the hydraulic master and a concentric slave cylinder and get around a lot of awkward and scarce linkage.