5 Speed conversion went very well until...

I started my first B5.5 5 speed manual conversion yesterday at 8 am. Everything went very smooth (almost too smooth...) until the mechanicals were wrapped up at about 6 pm. When it was time to bleed the clutch, I had difficulty with the pedal sticking to the floor and lots of air kept coming out when trying to vacuum bleed it.

I decided to pressure bleed it, and lots more air came out, then the fluid ran clear and bubble free and the clutch engagement felt right.

I was finishing the interior reassembly when I noticed I had a drivers side floorboard full of brake fluid

The clutch master cylinder is leaking

I pinched off the supply line from the reservoir so the leak would stop and cleaned up the floor of the car.

I still need to recode the car with VCDS and get it tuned. I did get the reverse lights operational and I modified my relay 53 so the car will start until I get my clutch switches wired in.

All in all the swap went very well short of the defective clutch master. I'll be excited to get that swapped and finish the wiring and tuning next weekend when I get back from day job travels

Good job. Bummer about the master cylinder

Get new seals for the clutch master and rebuild it. Also, you need to get a tune first THEN the tecoding.

Update - finished the swap yesterday.

I replaced the leaking clutch master, re-pinned ECU, removed TCU, modified a brake light switch to be "both" clutch switches, loaded the tune, recoded car, recalibrated G85.


The leaking clutch master was broken inside the boot, the retaining shoulder had snapped off.


I went with Malone Stage 2 5 speed DUK trans tuning, and cruise works in all gears.


The car is much more fun to drive with traction control off

Congrats! I want to do mine at some point too.

First mileage update since conversion - drove to Champaign, IL today, 45.7 mpg. RPM at 70 (GPS actual, 74 indicated) - 2400. Very happy.

Cool! I'm SLOWLY working on mine. I can't even give mine a whole weekend at a time. I got my balance shaft delete done and finally got the auto out of it today. Tomorrow morning I'll be taking some things apart on the interior...