How To: 5 Speed Swap in Convertibles (and other S13s)

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JXN
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So there should be nothing inside the thrust bearing right?

thanks for your help!!


nab911
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whoal... at the moment, you dont have a thrust/pilot bearing/bushing. You need to pull the tranny and put one in.

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JXN
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Heres what i think the shop didnt do...

they didnt take out the auto pilot bearing, and didnt even both with the new pilot bearing.

The bearing will not properly fit with the manaul trans input shaft, and when you put load on the thrust bearing(steping on the clutch pedal), it will totally touch against something and grind like a lil biatch.

Can someone confirm this??

nab911
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There is not auto pilot bearing... they thought they couldnt pull it out so they figured leave it in and not put the new one in... at least thats what i did

slownslurious
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I did my swap and I'm pretty much ready to start but I still can't find the plugs... I checked all the wiring around the fusebox and I just don't see them. what color are they, how far away from the fusebox are they?

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Hijacker
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Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
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attached the fuse box, and the one you're after is grey.

as far as this whole pilot bushing stuff, i don't recommend running without the bushing. it's there to help isolate vibrational differences from the trans' input shaft and the crank.

nab911
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You CANT run with out it. It will run but start tearing stuff up and making a horrible noise. Thats what we are trying to get down to... his shop didnt put one back in.

slownslurious
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tenkawa_akito wrote:attached the fuse box, and the one you're after is grey.

as far as this whole pilot bushing stuff, i don't recommend running without the bushing. it's there to help isolate vibrational differences from the trans' input shaft and the crank.
"the one I'm after" you mean the one that need looped for the top to work?

seriously I've done everything for my swap I do all my own work on the car so I'm not new to this but I looked and looked and did NOT find the 3 plugs mentioned...I'm pretty sure I must be retarded or something.

nab911
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they are suppsoed to be attached to the bottom of the fuse box. The park sensor plug (for top and the car to start) should be the highest up think. Take a pic of your fuse box and the area around it.

slownslurious
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nab911 wrote:they are suppsoed to be attached to the bottom of the fuse box. The park sensor plug (for top and the car to start) should be the highest up think. Take a pic of your fuse box and the area around it.
ok I finally finished up a few of my finals (1 more to go!) and had some time to snap a few pics.

Fuse box is under those wires somewhere:



Oh, there it is:



from below:



a bit of guidance, anyone?

slownslurious
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bump this, please dear god help me

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Hijacker
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wow. just wow. please please please clean that mess up.

anyways, here's what you wanted. the plug in question is the middle plug of the first picture.that plug will allow your top to work and is also where you get your reverse lights working. I fyou look at the bottom, you can see where I spliced the park/neutral safety switch so the car will turn on (it's the big yellow but connector that has the white and black wires connecting).

I also circled on your picture where the plug you need is.

slownslurious
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yeah its gonna be cleaned up a lot, I've just been busy and I wanted to get it rewired before I go ziptying all the wiring back down. thanks for the help, if all goes well I should be able to try to start it up tomorrow.

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Hijacker
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just a quick note:I couldn't see your park/neutral safety switch plug in that mess. It's usually underneath the fusebox on the side with the three auto-trans plugs (in my picture). It's a small 2 prong connector with two thick wires. One white, one black.



you can see it poking out from under the bottom of the fuse box (i had removed the upper portion when i took that picture). Jumper that connector to get your car started

slownslurious
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I'll try to find it tomorrow morning, but I'll probably be posting back with more confusion...

slownslurious
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OK this is the only 2 plug wire I found but the wires look different now that I compare them:



anyway I wrapped the plugs in tape that I guess I'm supposed to wire.


SR20Monster
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Hopefully getting a mint auto 240sx soon.. this will be the best help yet!

StylezTA
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This was an excellent write up, i was completely stuck on how to get my buddies sr20 fired all to find out the last owner never wired the auto-manual swap when he did it on the ka24e. Only problem i am having is with the reverse light wiring. I have this green/white wire i do believe it is... where should i wire it to? should i just connect the brown/yellow and green/blue wire to it? the directions are a lil hazy in there. but hey, at least i got it start! thanks!

top_secret
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my car still isn't running but at least I've got it cranking by following this write up. a guy tried to jumpstart it and he put his negative to my positive, etc... I'm afraid he might have fried my expensive jdm ecu.

StylezTA
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ahhh just need quick explanation on reverse lights! help me out guys!

boycelaforest707
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I have owned a few 240s, just ended up with a auto one I am going to swap to 5spd, did swap on my friends and he had a high idle and some rev problems, what exactly to the 4/5th gear sensors tell the ECU to do?

IslandStyle
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Car: 94 240sx Convertible / 96 All Motor Civic / 97 328i Convertible

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Hey everyone, I'm new- 1st post- but I'm at work so I'll introduce myself later.

I'm picking up my 5spd swap tomorrow. I already paid for it, but now the guy selling it is telling me that I DO NOT need the driveshaft. He said his friend just did this swap in his convertible and his AUTOMATIC driveshaft worked fine.

Can someone verify this who is FOR SURE that the driveshaft is needed- and what's the difference if so? Size, bolt-up config? ???

Thanks, I'll check back tonight with an official hello!-Brian

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madcowvert
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i have seen them next to each other. the big diffrence is where the drive shaft gose into the tranny to me it seems that it is a big bolted peace of metal, i think it's made to hold more torqe but i am pretty sure that you can use your drive shaft but if i were you i would get the 5spd one..

top_secret
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they are different

IslandStyle
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And now I've just recently learned that the ABS and Non-ABS driveshafts are different?

By the way my car locks up and slides like I'm on ice at the lightest of "firm" braking, I definately DO NOT have ABS LOL But the setup I'm getting is from an S14 SE, so this most likely has ABS.

Problem? Yes, no?

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madcowvert
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you should have found a s13 everything would be easyer and i dont think the abs drive shaft will work

IslandStyle
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Well it's all the same transmission and everything. But true on the abs, I'm gonna have to hope its the non-abs driveshaft.

Also, one of my friends manages the parts dept. at a nissan dealership here in Orlando. He looked up the part #'s between the auto and manual and said they ARE different, but the 2 driveshafts' #'s are only 1 number off from each other. By the look of the picture, he said it looks like it would fit, but obviously if I've already paid and the driveshaft is correct, I'll use it to be 100% sure.

Thanks for the info. I'm sure I'll be on this thread when I install it in a few weeks LOL

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madcowvert
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i just did my friends swap the hardest part would probbely be drilling the hole for the master clucth cylinder but the rest is cake

IslandStyle
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Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2006 3:09 pm
Car: 94 240sx Convertible / 96 All Motor Civic / 97 328i Convertible

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Oh, and as I just learned from the parts I got... the driveshaft has to match your generation! The rest is interchangealbe, but the S14 driveshaft is 5 inches longer than the S13.

So... if the tranny DOES fit with my auto driveshaft I'll probably just use it.

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gravetolife91
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Car: 89 ca18det 240sx, 01 Jetta VR6

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Ok I this in its own thread but no reply and after reading through I understand a bit more. So in my pic below I circled the three switched that you have to mod. in order to make everything work. But after following them they lead no where or to the yellow arrows, can i hack off my coupes plugs and then wire those up or do i need auto trans plug. I am doing a 5sp on a vert BTW.


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