Quote: Just last week I had a board member PM me about MORE info on 5 speed swaps.
Its documented in great detail/photos in numerous places on the site......
Passon can make a living selling 4500$ transmissions because people wont do the research to do it themselves.
I regularly get asked for a FULL parts list and MORE photos of my swap.
More photos or detail wont help.....what is needed is the desire to do the swap....and an understanding of how a project evolves. You have to look at your project and ask yourself " What....exactly...is in the way of just bolting this thing in my car?"
Thats what I did over a decade ago ....without any examples to follow, any parts lists or diagrams. It took 2 days and $200 to do it.
Anyone can do the same.
There is no ONE way or correct way to do this.
I sense irritation and frustration from your comments, Sandy. First off, my comment was directed solely at Lou, intended as a friendly chide regarding his promise to write a full article (someday) about his conversion. This had a HUGE impact on my decision to get in on the T-5 bellhousing group-buy. So, who asked you?
Second, I'm not sure if you realize this, but I've been around .org for about ten years, asking questions, posting comments, doing searches and research the whole time. I've even tried to contribute by answering a few of the easier questions now and then. Responding to my post like I'm some newbie looking for a quick, easy set of instructions to drop a 5-spd into my Dart over the weekend with little or no effort is unwarranted.
Third, before even getting involved in the group-buy, I read every single post about the swap I could find, over and over, including yours. I'm well aware that there's probably a hundred posts or so from the 3 or 4 folks who have done this conversion, and scattered over many pages of slantsix.org is enough information for some brave and talented people to successfully complete this project.
But, hard as this might be to believe, I'm STILL not confident enough to just dive in and cut up my upper and lower crossmembers, considering (a) I'm not a fabricator, (b) I'm not a mechanic, (c) I don't know how to weld, and (d), I've never even replaced a clutch, or been inside a bellhousing of a manual trans car. I've read your article, which DID NOT involve the group-buy bellhousing. What's so unreasonable to want ANOTHER person's experience with the swap besides your own? Everything I've read of Lou's has been clear and concise, and I think an article from his perspective would be a huge asset to those of us still considering the upgrade, and could only add to the knowledge of the subject. Now, if Lou has neither the time nor the wherewithal to sit down and write an article and share his personal experience (since every swap is different), that's fine, but I don't think he needs you to defend him.
We're not talking about valve adjustment or bodywork here, where the consequences of failure are negligible. If I go out and cut up structural elements of my car and realize I'm in over my head, I can't take it to the local shop and have my work corrected. We're also not talking about a big bolt brake swap, or something else that's been done thousands of times. Relatively speaking, there's a very small number of people who have done the swap, and collating the scattered info that's out there is difficult.
YES, we who want to do the swap want to take advantage of the hard pioneering work you and the other guys have done. Guilty as charged. It almost seems like this is becoming a subject whereby the T-5 elite are acting like this some kind of rite of passage, saying "figure it out for yourself", "do a search" and "the information is out there", so the men can be separated from the boys. The consequences of failure in this project could mean, literally, the destruction of something of great sentimental value (something YOU can understand, I'm sure). The stakes are MUCH higher than in many other projects, and I'M the one who has to live with the consequences if things go badly, so what's so wrong with trying to get as much information as possible?
If you guys are really getting so sick of seeing these questions about the T-5 swap, may I suggest that you simply ignore them? That's what I do when I see questions I'm tired of. Forums are ALL ABOUT questions, and sometimes the same ones are asked over and over. Get over it, or at least, if you can't say something nice...
I also think that the contention that ANYONE can do this conversion is ridiculous. I'm an amateur illustrator, but I'd never suggest that "anyone can draw". Yes, some things ARE learned from practice and experience, but some folks have talents and skills that make their projects out-of-reach of the average joe. Bet I can draw better than you, even if I stopped now and and you practiced for 40 years. It's been 3 or 4 years since the group-buy, I'm still trying to figure out if this project is one I'm capable of or not. Sandy, the fact that you were able to come up with this swap, figure out how to make it work, and do it all for less than $200 is a testament to your skill, ability, and ingenuity. You're selling yourself short if you think just anyone can do that, for a VARIETY of reasons.
To Lou and everyone who's done this swap BESIDES Sandy, is there a chance that, SOMEDAY, those of us "less talented" folks could get an article describing your (or a collection of everyone's) experiences in one place, maybe with a few pics (BESIDES Sandy's) and/or a pencil sketch of the crossmember mods, rather than folks trying to track down hundreds of individual posts over 10 or 20 threads over the past 10 years? 'Cause if Sandy's response is a reflection of the rest of the T-5 club (and any other .org members), I think I'll just put my bellhousing on Ebay and go an easier route.
Rant over.
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