Low budget manual 5-speed swap.

Last week I picked up a ’05 Passat sedan with 250K Kms, and a transmission that leaked out the fluid and eventually burnt up the friction surfaces. After hunting for a replacement automatic transmission and coming up short with anything that was near or in good condition, decided to talk to Windex and get some pointers on the finer details of his swap (I didn’t see his write up until after our conversation). After our 45 minute conversation, I decided to change direction with this project and convert the car to a manual 5-speed instead. I’m not looking for any kind of horsepower improvement in the engine and since this car will only be my daily commuter, I decided to do a very low budget conversion (have other cars that I have fun on the weekends).
The following day picked up an FHN transmission from a local importer for $725. The transmission came with the slave cylinder and he threw in a used clutch set too. The clutch set looks good but the disk shows more wear that I would prefer therefore, I will either reline it or replace it completely. The flywheel and the pressure plate are in good enough shape to reuse. The release bearing will probably be replaced too. I do all my own work on all my cars so my perception of “worth reusing” might be different than for someone that pays for the labour and/or don’t have a “back up” car.
Today I picked up two axles from a 1.8T Passat for ($35/ea.) and a shifter box form a manual Passat for $80. On the weekend I’ll go and start looking for the pedal, master and associated line/switches. I will see if the existing transmission mounts can be modified and reused. I have access to a machine shop so the pilot bearing will be made there or will make a sleeve or two to accept a standard off the shelf bearing.
I’ll post pictures of the parts a little later and update this thread as the project progressed. The plan is to get the car on the road in about a month.

I was expecting to read about someone doing what I did. Where you are saving your money is doing the work yourself which is significant. I have access to some very good yards with really good prices and I was willing to deal with higher rpms so I saved quite a bit more.

Here is my breakdown:
Valeo Clutch kit: 350
Malone re-tune: 400
Malone tuner rental: Free (Bora parts rocks!!!)
OEM Audi axles: 100
Transmission: 100 v6 passat but I still break 40 mpg's on the highway
Shifter: 15
Trans fluid: 45
VCDS Re-config: Free
Clutch Pedal and pin: Free with trans
Clutch switch: 10

Two Days of my time: Free but not free...

Grand Total: $1020

Not too bad in my book...tis a shame this valeo has started slipping though. These passats really need a better selection of clutches.

Besides the tunning, my cost will probably be around that price too. Buddy of my is about to throw out a 97 A4 manual. I can have whatever I want for free. Pulling the pedal and related parts in a few hours. Got the shifter knob and boot the other day.

Up to now, I'm $875 into the project

Got the clutch disk relined by a somewhat local shop. The used clutch kit was good except the disk was about 80% worn. Relining was under $80.

Pulled the transmission last night. All but the clutch kit are ready to go too.






http://pics.tdiclub.com/data/uploads//39551/20140604_221939.jpg

Finally pieced together the clutch and had it rebuilt. The flywheel, disk and pressure plate are rebuilt locally and the release and pilot bearing are new. Total cost for this was $300. Got some new bolts for the clutch and a couple of transmission mount brackets. Will be hunting for the driver side bracket on Saturday. The centering tool is a left over from an old Mazda project. The splines are a bit different so I wrapped it with some electrical tape and it worked perfectly. Also replaced the rear main seal too as it was leaking. Also, installed the shifter and clutch pedal. The shifter boot and knob are from a '97 A4. With some trimming and a couple screws, it fits perfectly.

Next few days the transmission is going in. So far pretty straight forward.

I'll post pictures in a few minutes but what a royal PITA it is to do that on this site.

What am I missing that the pictures are only showing as links and not the images?

Got it figured out.

Rest of the pictures from the previous post

imo000 said:

What am I missing that the pictures are only showing as links and not the images?

Click to expand...

When posting picture, click on this icon then paste link inside:

Has to be the correct link though. This: http://pics.tdiclub.com/data/500/20140604_221931.jpg

In the IMG tags gives:



This (same picture from the link above):

http://pics.tdiclub.com/showphoto.php?photo=104452&title=20140604-221931&cat=500

gives this:

Transmission jacks are for pussies.

I would have killed for one doing mine.

I pulled the transmission at a buddy's machine shop. He had a transmission jack there too so we used it. The car is now back in garage and will be using an ATV/Motorcycle jack to put the manual transmission in.

Thanks for the picture tips. I'll adjust them later. Tweaked my right wrist pretty good when tightenning the flywheel bolts and will be out of commission for a week. I'll update the thread when I restart the work.

Got the proper driver side transmission mount bracket. The first picture is the driver side and the second (with the heat shield) from the passanger side.

What's that piston from?

Not exactly. Its the centre piston from a Ski Doo Formula III 600. So that makes it a 200 displacement. The indent in the top is a result of a plug failing at top speed on a lake and almost melting a hole in the piston. It's a throphy that I keep for the best carnage that I did for all stuff I had before.

The drill is gigantic!
Here is the melted piston


The clutch master cylinder was a paint to put it. I didn't loosen or remove enything and that's probably why but all the parts are there, including rubber/metal washer by the firewall.

Just wait until you try to bleed it...

imo000 said:

Not exactly. Its the centre piston from a Ski Doo Formula III 600. So that makes it a 200 displacement. The indent in the top is a result of a plug failing at top speed on a lake and almost melting a hole in the piston. It's a throphy that I keep for the best carnage that I did for all stuff I had before.

Click to expand...

It was not a spark plug that caused that!
That is a classic lean fuel mixture seizure!
Most often happens on a cold day when the air is more dense making your mixture too lean.
Cracked carb boots and using regular gas are also good at causing that!

Usually you would be right but what happened here eas that I had a fouled plug qnf replaceded it, like an idiot, with one 5 ranges warmer because thats all I had, was fine all day until I went out on the lake and did a idiotic top speed run. The electrode melted and the spark was jumping between the plug and the top of the piston, melting it. Still have the plug too. I got what I deserved but got lucky as it didn't burn a hole in the piston and spewed molten aluminium into the crancase bearing.

Transmission is in. Took some time to do it alone but eventually it went in. Used an ATV jack and some wood to lift it in. As Windex suggested in his swap post, I took the slave cylinder off. Couple of the bolts transmission bolts are longer than the automatic one but I have a bunch of bolts left over from past projects so finding some longer ones wasn't an issue.

Good Progress!

Got the rest of the upper bolts in today and connected the shifter rods. Windex's post about not using the upper most bolt hole came handy. I tried to spin it in by fingers just make sure the FHN dorsn't need it and sure enough, it has not receiving threaded hole in the blck.

What kind of a socket is needed to crack open the oil drain hole. Looks like a tripple squeare but with a hole in the middle. Like a safety torx.

imo000 said:

Got the rest of the upper bolts in today and connected the shifter rods. Windex's post about not using the upper most bolt hole came handy. I tried to spin it in by fingers just make sure the FHN dorsn't need it and sure enough, it has not receiving threaded hole in the blck.

What kind of a socket is needed to crack open the oil drain hole. Looks like a tripple squeare but with a hole in the middle. Like a safety torx.

Click to expand...

use a suck tube down the dipstick hole!
Filter is up top too
No need to get under car!

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. I'm talking about the manual transmission drain plug.

Yeah, that's an odd one - mine is just a standard 10mm hex. Do you have a picture?

Some are triple square safety type and some are plain hex. Don't know why.

Looks like tripple square safety.




The shifter is connected. Had to modify a regular bolt to have a pointy tip to be aqble to recess into the shifter rod hole. VW sells the proper bolt but I didn't feel going to the deale just for that. The other pictures are of the driver amd passanger side transmission mounts and then a rear shot of the transmission sitting on the mounts.

That drain plug looks like a 10mm 12-point socket to me.

I have had one for 34 years now as I needed it for my 914. Could not tell you what size it is though.

It's an optical illusion!

The shadows make it look internal (with a nub inside) or external (like a 12pt with a hole in the middle) depending on how you squint at the image.

I have a set with the holes in the middle - I think I might have the one you need.