If you have comments or suggestions, email me at dkan@america.net
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at dkan@america.net
It all started a few months back when my good friend Steve Jones called me up in the middle of the night (I had been sleeping) to tell me that he had purchased a transmission for me. He knew I was thinking about converting my '86 535i
( My very good friend Steve
Jones with his car "Stella" a '90 750il)
from an automatic to a 5 speed. He saw the perfect ad in the
uuc digest from
James Clay http://www.bimmerworld.com/
that advertised the transmission (Getrag 260) from the same year car as
mine. The car had been wrecked from the rear and had 114K miles in
it. My car has now 209K miles and was slamming hard from gear to
gear in my "ZF slush box". The transmission advertised came with
the drive shaft, used clutch disk, pressure plate and throw out bearing.
It also came with the flywheel, and master and slave cylinder, pedal box
(with brake and clutch pedal) It was advertised as a complete swap
kit. Steve had been online the very minute it was posted to the digest
and had decided for me that now was the time to swap my transmission.
What can I say. He was right. He woke me up in the middle of
the night yelling loudly that I had just purchased a 5 speed transmission
for my car. Never mind that I did not have the cash on hand, he told
me he would spot me. I woke up the next day wondering if it had all
been a dream. I saw Steve at work the next day only to confirm what
had happened. I had indeed been committed to buy this transmission.
I now had to tell my wife what I was about to do. She and the rest
of my family thought I was crazy to put this kind of money into a car with
209 K miles. They just don't understand. And so Steve
not only lent me the money for the tranny swap, he offered to drive up
with me to Virginia to pick it up in his minivan. Steve also has
a 1990 750iL (Stella) and is active in our local BMW CCA chapter (as I
am too) and seemed almost as excited as me to be doing this. We left
on a Saturday morning at 4:00am from Atlanta GA. We were in four
states in one day. We got to Virginia, and had met James
Clay, paid the money, got the stuff and were back in Atlanta by 6:00pm
that same day. (We had to stop at JR's Cigar Warehouse for cigars
of course.) I put the transmission in my garage and it stared me
in the face every time I came home from work. When I built up enough
scratch to pay Steve back and buy some new parts it was time to do the
swap. I went with a new clutch disk, pressure plate and throw out
bearing and also a new master and slave cylinder. I wound up doing
the work at a shop/boneyard up in Braselton Georgia called Strictly
German. The owner of the shop is a man by the name of Bobby
Thrash. He is the President of our local BMW CCA (Peachtree Chapter). I
have known him for about two years. He is a stand up guy. He
told me I could swap the tranny under his supervision with his lift and
tools. By doing so I was able to provide "sweat equity" for my labor
and save a little bit of money. How much money I will not say but
he was able to keep my used ZF transmission and any other parts I left
behind. I also purchased all new parts from him as he sells both
new and used parts.
Disclaimer:
I am not a mechanic. I am an average do-it-yourselfer who worked
to do this swap under the guidance of a professional. Up until now
the biggest things I had done (by myself) to my car were: replace radiator,
replace "brake bomb", replace ATF trans filter, adjust valves, change spark
plugs and wires and change brake pads. The following is provided
as a means of debunking the mystery of what goes into a swap. I am not
intending for this to be any kind of technical guide for other do-it-yourselfers.
If you are going to do your own swap, please seek a professional mechanic
unless you are qualified to do your own work.
That being said, I had a lot of help from a 17 year old high school student who has been working at "Strictly German" this past summer as an apprentice working under Bobby Thrash. My transmission swap had been the third one he had worked on in three months. All of the swaps were on BMWs of local car club members. I'm sure that someday he will be able to be a extremely competent BMW tech as he already has a boatload of knowledge at a very young age.
Here is a photo of Bobby's place Strictly German (706) 654-9103
(Photo taken with permission from Steve Jone's website. This
photo was taken by Don Udel during the Summer of '99 UUC Shifter Fest)
Here is a view of Bobby's back yard.
Here is my car on the lift before the initial surgery. There is
no turning back now!! She will never be the same!
Before you start just get mentally ready by drinking a beer.
OK so here I go. The first thing I started to do is tear apart
my kick panel and my shifter console. I removed the cover first of
the emergency brake handle by punching out two plastic screw hole covers
near the back and then I pulled the emergency brake cover back up and out.
Then start tearing apart the shifter console.
Everything including the plastic cover in front of the blower motors
has to come out.
Before you get the car up on the lift make sure that you leave the
trans in neutral so
you can rotate the drive shaft easy with your hands.
.
After you get the shifter up and off and have the trim off put the tranny in neutral and get the car up on the lift.
It's time to drain the last AFT fluid this car will
ever see!!!
OHH YEAA!!
Now drink some more beer and get out your long socket wrench with the
half inch drive.
Loosen the bolts that hold the sway bar bushings against the frame
of the car. Once the are loose you can take
them out with your fingers. I found that using thin plastic gloves
saved my hands
from some of the nicks you get from this job.
Once the bushings are out, you can use a rubber bungie strap to move
the sway bar out of your way without
having to remove it from the car. I attached mine to the towing
link near my front bumper.
Now the sub frame cross member has to come off. I think they are
19 mm bolts and there are two
for each side. You may notice the area I am working in as being
wet. I have a leak from my
steering box which is coming from the banjo bolt line under the box.
It is a high pressure line coming from the
power steering/brake booster system. I ordered a new hollow bolt
and washers for my next project
to seal it all up. "And I was wondering why my steering was a
little heavy???"
Now Drink some more beer and "Take 5" "Man this Georgia heat can
be a real bear!!"
Spray some liquid Wrench penetrating oil into all of your exhaust bolts
and hardware.
You can also unplug the wire harness to your auto tranny if it is the
EH electric shift type.
Otherwise undo any linkage you might see. The ATF dipstick tube
terminates into the pan with a
30mm nut. Use some oil on that too as mine was a bear to get
loose. In fact I had to use a cheater bar.
Give it ten minutes to soak it. My poor cat has a bunch of clay
around it from several of my Pep Boys quick fixes.
How embarrassing is this.. my cat dropped half of the clay on the floor.
I will get a better cat when I can afford
it. Maybe tax rebate time in Feb. of 2000???
Once you have everything loose on the exhaust, use a stand or
two and have a bud help you lift it up and out of the car.
I wish I had a picture of us doing this but as you can see my hands
were full. The only thing semi-new on my exhaust
is the muffler that I got from Beckers in Albany GA about a year ago.
It is an Ansa.
My poor exhaust ....
The next thing I did was to remove all of the ATF cooler lines that
run all the way to the radiator.
Take the dipstick off if you have not already and remove any remaining
linkage from the shifter.
The next thing I did was to remove the transmission support bracket
with four 10mm bolts.
Use a transmission stand to support the tranny. The bolts for
the bracket slide out once
you turn them 90 degrees. You will have to reposition them for
the manual tranny.
The next thing to come out is the drive shaft. If your automatic
drive shaft is in good shape, keep it
as someone may need it and you can sell it quickly. The bolts
for the drive shaft should be used once.
Take new bolts for the manual drive shaft even if you have to get them
at the dealer.
Now I had to remove the bell housing access panel and the two sensors
that talk to your motronic.
Don't get them mixed up as you will need them for your car to start.
I marked the speed sensor
with a plastic zip strip in order to not mix them up. They
both mount up in the same position so be
careful.
With the bell housing access panel removed you can undo the bolts that
mount the autotrans flywheel
to the torque converter. There are three bolts. In order
to hold the flywheel still while you wrench
on it I used a small pry bar or big screwdriver to wedge into the teeth
of the flywheel. I also
used the same tool to slowly turn the flywheel around to the next bolt.
Now with a very long extension and working above the transmission with
a flash light.
Use a inverted torx socket to loosen the bolts around the bellhousing.
Clean the top
of the bolts first to get any crud off of them. I sprayed mine
with brake cleaner and that seemed to
do the trick. The socket has to be dead on these as they are
torqued down to factory specs.
I had to sweat a lot on these so go ahead a reward yourself with a
beer after they are done.
Your going to need to be rested for the next step.
Now you should be able to muscle the tranny off. Use several small motions
in lieu of big jerky ones.
Let the tranny stand to most of the work. Once you see that you
have it free, lower it down.
Get the drip pan ready on the floor because ATF will pour out of the
torque converter.
Your car thanks you!! Good Riddance!! You can almost hear
your car say "Ahhh...."
That thing still on the flywheel is the torque converter. It pulls
right off easy but is full of ATF.
Drop it right into the drip pan and let it drain. Without the
weight of the torque converter my car
now turns over faster and starts quicker.
Start taking off the eight bolts that mount the flywheel. Since
this job is not as messy, now would be a
good time to call your Wife or SO.. to let her know how its going.
"Yeah Honey, I haven't broken
anything major and the car will be a few pounds lighter... Isn't that
great... Honey... Honey... Hello..."
Now lower the car down and get into the car to pull up on the shifter.
Say good bye to the shifter.
It's been nice knowing ya..... NOT!! Now is a good time for a
beer. From here on in you work
with manual trans parts and that deserves a toast. "To my five
speed!!! Cheers!!!"
Using Bobby's air tools I used a "ziz wheel" to take the glaze off of
my manual trans flywheel.
Keep it clean and do not get any grease on it. After looking
at these pictures I should have
taken a fresh pair of thin rubber gloves. I think the bolt heads
were 17 mm.
After you have them finger tight, use a criss-cross pattern to
tighten them to factory spec.
The E28 Bently manual calls for 77 foot pounds.
Make sure you use a race to knock the pilot bearing all the way in.
As you can see I went with
a new clutch disk and pressure plate and throw out bearing.
Use plenty of grease and use the plastic alignment tool check the fitting.
The tool should go
in and out of the center with no binding. Now is a good time
for a beer brake and get a ride home.
(Since you have been drinking)
Tomorrow its time to put the five speed in!! Ohh Yeah...
Use the same long extension with the inverted torx socket to torque
up the bolts mating the tranny with the
engine. One thing that I did not do that I wish I did was to
replace the output shaft gear oil seal while
it was right in front of me. When I replace my cat I will get
that done. I should have also replaced the
gear shifter oil seal which is right above it.
I prematurely put on the sway bar and cross member. I had to remove
them later when I added the
clutch slave cylinder. I am pointing now to the bolts for the
flywheel access panel. I think they were
13 mm bolt heads.
Using the same ziz wheel that I used to take the glaze off of my flywheel
was used to clean
off the rubber rust proofing that is underneath the car. I had
to take it down to the bare metal.
Since the automatic does not have a manual shifter bracket we (Bobby)
had to weld one in.
I used a Milwaukee Sawzzall to cut one out of a donor car and then
cleaned off the excess
metal on the bench grinder.
Once the shifter bracket is marked in place by pre-installing the shifter
and using a grease pencil,
to mark it, you can weld it in. Here is a shot of Bobby
about to weld in the shifter bracket.
Since your not actually working at this point, now is a good time for
a beer.
This is Bobby Thrash in action!
Now it is tome to bolt up the drive shaft. I wish I had used the
vibration damper that James had
included with the kit but I was told that I did not need it.
I wish now that I had. I will put it on when
I replace my trans oil seals.
Torque the nuts for the bolts that mount the drive shaft up to the differential.
If you have the tranny in
neutral, it is easy to rotate the drive shaft with your hand to move
to the next nut.
Check the E28 Bentley manual for the torque spec.
Now mount up the center support bracket. The Bentley manual calls
for a pre load in the
direction of the engine of about 4 millimeters. The was fairly
easy.
The transmission support was sold to me with the old rubber mounts.
I used them and now
wish I had replaced the rubber mounts with new ones. The bolts
that mate up to the support
bracket slide out of the old groves that were used for the auto tranny
and slide into the
new slots. The can be removed by rotating them 90 degrees and
pulling them out of the
gap in the grove slot marked by my arrows.
While your here, now is a good time to drain your gear oil using the
17 mm hex drain plug here.
I did not use Redline MTL but wished that I had. That is something
that I will do as soon as I can.
Here is my new (used) pedal box with a new master cylinder installed
and a new piece of hydraulic hose.
Take a good look at it now because this is difficult to show while
under the dash. There are eight
mounting holes for bolts. The old pedal box comes out and the
new one goes in right in place.
Now is a good time to clean any electrical contacts for the brake light
switch and the cruise control
kill switch on the clutch pedal.
Now comes the hard part of having
to work on your side.
STOP drinking Beer and start
drinking Coffee.
Start by first undoing the wires that plug into your brake light switch.
I had a lot of help here from the young shop
apprentice who had done this and so he worked pretty fast. Here
he is loosening the bolts that mount the
current brake pedal box.
Now I removed the bolts that hold the steering column up in place.
When I put everything back,
I added three washers as spacers to lower the angel of the steering
wheel. I have always
believed that the wheel should tilt as well as scope in and out.
While mine does not tilt it
is at better angle for me. I cannot see the top of my gauges
but I can peek under the steering
wheel if I want to check my speed.
Here we pulled the entire steering column off of the steering shaft.
I am told that we did not have to
do this but it is easier to get to your stuff if you do.
Write down on a piece of paper of or draw a diagram of every electrical
wire that you disconnect.
With the old pedal box out you can now put in your new pedal box.
The brake pedal arm mounts
the same way the old one did. Double and triple check the locking
clip that locks the brake pedal
arm pin. It is the only thing connecting your pedal arm to your
brake system.
This is a shot of the clutch hose on the other side of the firewall.
The brake fluid reservoir has a notch
that has to be cut off to accommodate the clutch fluid hose.
This is the hose that feeds fluid into the clutch master
cylinder. If you re going to use a pressure bleeder, be sure
to use a hose clamp on this hose.
Be sure your bleeder does not generate anything greater that 15 to
20 PSI in this plastic reservoir.
The Auto Trans "Brain Box" is in the left hand and is not needed.
The cruise control is in the right hand
and is of course needed.
In the lower left hand corner of this pic you see a black air hose with
a cup on the end. This hose connects
in conjunction with a three wire connector to your kick panel when
you are all done. This vacuum hose sucks
air from the cabin and is part of the cabin temp control system.
Do not lose sight of where this hose is connected
to. Mine was not connected with any kind of force and if you
look at it wrong mine would fall off its vacuum
source. Do not lose sight of where it connects as it is tough
to see. Trust Me...
Now it is time to put the steering column back on the steering shaft.
Although we marked the steering
shaft with a magic marker, I still did not get the wheel on straight
and had to pull the steering
wheel off below the horn button to straighten it out.
This is the connector for my old electronic trans. There are nine
pins that look like this.
Please excuse the crude drawing, I did this with MS-Paint.
In order for the car to start you must jump pins 2 and 3. This
is the neutral safety switch that prohibits
the car from starting when the shifter is not in Park. Since
the manual trans has no need
for this you can bypass it.
Now
is a good time for Coffee.
I had to purchase a new rubber boot for my shifter as the one I had
was cracked and letting
a bunch of hot air pass. One thing that I did not do that I wish
I did was to plug all the screw
and bolt holes around the shifter that were used to mount the auto
shifter with something to keep heat
and air from coming up. I guess I am going to pull everything
out again to do this.
Now I learned from reading my Bentley manual that the cruise control
needs a ground on pin number nine
in order to function. This thing in my hand is the cruise control
box with the blue connector plug on
the left being the connector harness for the cruise control.
Simply unplug it and find the wire that
connects to pin number three. It will be a blue wire with a brown
strip.
Once you have found the blue wire with the brown stripe go ahead and
cut
it in half. Don't worry. You are doing the right thing.
Once you have cut the wire in half. You will have to ground the
wire on the
right. (The one connected to the blue connector) I found a ground
to the left of the
steering column called by the Bentley manual of G200. You will
see several brown
wires mounted to this ground each with a wire eye on the end.
You will now have to fabricate a ground wire to splice to. If
you cannot find a
brown wire to use just be sure find one at least as thick as the wire
used on the
connector harness.
I crimped my eye connector to my ground wire using my bench vise but
you can use any kind of pliers.
Now make your connection. I used a solder iron to make this connection
and capped it with a plastic cap.
The other end of this runs to the ground. When you undo the bolt
holding all the grounded wires, make sure you get
each and every one of them back on the bolt after you add your ground
wire eye to the bunch. Tighten the bolt down
but don't use excessive force.
Now mount your cruise box and find two clutch switch wire connectors
in your wire harness that are green and red.
These are for the clutch pedal kill switch. The cruise control
gets it s ground from the brake light switches so the
very same ground is routed through this clutch pedal kill switch in
series. This kills your cruise if it is set
when you push down on the clutch pedal so your RPMs wont rev up to
redline. It has the same effect as
touching your brakes when the cruise control is set.
With the green and red wires connected to your clutch pedal and your
brake light switch wire connected to
your brake pedal you can now go for a ride and test your cruise control.
I love my new five speed and look forward to many years of driving schools
and other BMW CCA events.
The above pic was taken of me during the spring of 99 at Savanna GA
during the Tar Heel Spring Course.
My instructor is Dave Hinshaw in this picture. My car was an
automatic at the time and I remember all
the limitations that my ZF slush box had given me. Those memories
are past now....
The picture below was taken during the summer autocross at Spartenburg
airport. We had
gotten a tour of the Spartenburg BMW factory plant the day before and
had a great time.
That's me on the right. My good friend Sean Conn on left is the
Peachtree Chapter BMW CCA Secretary.
