Gday,

Just wondering if any one's ever taken on an auto to manual conversion on a first gen magna? My old TP auto, which is now my sisters first car, is begining to play up, the transmission that is. So if the transmission does finally go, I'd rather chuck a manual tranny in there for reliabilty, slightly better fuel consumption, less vibrations when idleing in gear (dodgy astron autos shaky shaky) and also the fact that its her first car, where as she's better off driving a manual before she forgets how.

So if any one has any info on first gen manual conversions I'd love to hear it. Things that I can think of that would need to be changed would be: tranny itself, pedal box ie: clutch, transmission mount?, not sure of ecu though, wether theres a seperate transmission ecu or not, and obviously shifter, and a few other little bits and pieces. If Ive missed anything please let me know.

Thanks

A fellow here made a doc up, but the link is dead, i saved it earlier, i think this is the one. its a preety good idea of what is needed etc.

Automatic to Manual Transmission Conversion
This document outlines the process of modifying a Automatic TN model Mitsubishi Magna to take a Manual transmission. This has been written after the conversion on my car was completed. As always with these kinds of documents, I'm not taking responsibility for any damage you may cause to yourself or others. This is provided as reference/interest material only.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Parts Needed
You'll need a few parts before you decide to begin converting your car, namely all the pieces that differ from an automatic to manual transmission vehicle. I found that it may be cheaper to buy a not-so-good donor car of the same generation and gut this for the parts you'll need. These include:
Manual Shifter
Shifter Cables
Shifter Boot
Shifter Cable Mounting Bracket
Shifter Cable Grommet
Foam surround
Manual Gearbox
Flywheel
Clutch
Clutch Pressure plate
Clutch Pedal
Clutch Master Cylinder
Clutch Slave Cylinder
Clutch Hydrolic Fluid Lines
Clutch Pedal Mounting Bracket
Brake Pedal
Wiring Loom (Starter Motor/Oil Pressure/Reverse Light)
Wiring Loom (Air Con/Carburettor/etc [FIX ME])
Rear Engine Surround (Sheet Metal)
RHS Transmission Mounting
Radiator (Optional)
As a side note, I've been told that the transmissions from a manual TM series will not go into a TN or TP, though the TN and TP transmissions are interchangable. You may want to confirm this with a wrecker or mechanic before purchasing any of the parts needed.
Differences Between Automatic and Manual
Below is a short list of differences that I've come across between the two models, these will be laid out in more detail further down the document.
Locating Stud on end of crankshaft mount needs to be removed
Rear engine surrounds differ slightly
Shifter mounting holes only match on front two bolts
Shifter cable mounting bracket is missing
Foam spacer under dash does not contain runners for shifter cables
Need to cut hole for shifter cables in firewall
Clutch pedal mounting is missing
Need to cut hole for clutch master cylinder in firewall
Engine based wiring looms (2) differ
RHS Transmission mounting is different
Used different bolt holes on side engine mounts (denoted by an "M" next to hole)
Brake pedal is narrow on manual car
Carburettor has a Throttle Position Sensor on an automatic

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doing the change over
To begin with, you'll want to remove the engine and transmission from the car. I won't go into how to do this here, as it's a rather complex proceedure and best left to your shop manual. You could possibly acomplish the conversion with the motor in place, though cutting holes in the firewall, swapping wiring looms, mounting the clutch cylinder pieces etc. would make this a very difficult job. I recommend removing the engine and transmission to ease this process. Also, with the engine out, you can take this opportunity to clean up the engine bay, engine and transmission and do any fiddly repairs (timing and balance chains are a lot easier to fit with the engine out in the open!) before you put it all back together.

With the motor out, you'll then want to prep the car body for the manual transmission. This is quite an involving process, which you'll want to get right the first time, as it basically involves removing a large part of the interior of the car.

Body Changes
Removing the center console and dash.
This is rather straight forward, though quite time consuming. I recommend you start by taking both front seats out, as this will give you much more room to work with, and allow you to pull the front section of the carpet back. A Gregory's manual is a good start for this, though not needed. There are a few different types of console and dash, for example my TN differed slightly from our TP donor car, but they're basically the same.

Start by taking the Center console's out. All three pieces are held in by a number of phillips head screws and a couple of push clips, just remember not to force anything as the plastic for these console pieces is rather brittle and will crack easily.

Next remove the glove box, speaker grill, dash covers (underneath) and dash, which are all held in place by a philips head screws and a few nuts and bolts. You can leave in the horisontal supporting bars if you remove a screw inside the ash tray hole. Just take your time, and make sure you are removing the correct screws. There's a wing-nut underneath the dash (accessible through the glove box opening) that holds in the speaker grill, as well as a few clips that you can lever out with a screw driver. Again, take your time and it will come out rather easily.

Next, remove the automatic shifter and cable by disconnecting the cable from the shifting assembily and unbolting this from the body. The cable will be coming from under the car and is removable from underneath the car (you'll need to remove a section of the exhaust heat sheild to get to the bolts for this. Once this is removed, bog up and seal this hole as it won't be used.

Mounting the Manual Shifter
When mounting the shifter, you'll notice that there are only two mounting nuts that match up with where the automatic shifter was mounted, you'll need to drill two more holes and use nylock nuts (or equivalent) to secure the sifter to the body of the car.

Use this opportunity to swap out the foam cable runner/spacer from under the carpet You might also be able to modify your current spacer so that it will take the new shifter cables.

Mounting the Shifter Cables
This is trickier than it looks! - You'll need to cut a rectangular hole in the firewall for the sifter cables, grommet and locking plate, there should be an outline visible from within the engine compartment that you can use as a guide for this, the locking plate is also a good guide for the shape.

There is also a bracket for mounting the cables to that sits about half way between the firewall and the shifter assembily that should be retro-fitted. In the process of converting my car, we had to remove the mount from a donor car and fix the mount in with nylock bolts (or weld it in).

Mounting the Clutch Pedal
If you haven't removed the dash, go remove it now. Under the dash there is a mount for the clutch pedal that sits on the under side of the car body, this will have to be mounted in place by either welding it, or using nylock bolts. We attatched this plate with four nylock bolts, two into the engine compartment, and two under where the windscreen-wipers sit. You'll need to cut another hole in the firewall for the clutch master cylinder, lucky this one's circular, use a hole-saw just make sure you've got the correct spot.

Changing the Brake Pedal
You'll find that the pedal is reasonably easy to remove, both brackets are identical, so this is just a straight swap over.

Chainging the wiring looms
Once you've got the dash out, this is rather simple. There's a loom that runs from across the top of the engine bay and into the left hand side of the car. This has a few connectors in the left hand side of the dash, and also runs under the carpet to the automatic control unit (which you can now remove). Disconnect this loom from the car and pull it through the hole in the firewall and remove the clips that hold it within the engine bay. The loom from a manual will be much simpler as it doesn't have the auto connectors, though it will plug straight in to the existing connectors behind the dash.

There is also another small loom that runs from behind the battery to the starter motor, oil pressure sender and reverse lamp. I had to splice my old connector onto the new loom from the donor car, as the connectors for the reverse lamp were different. The wire colours where slightly different, but it's rather obvious to tell with a multi-meter (or even cable colour) what does what. [Note: The Gregory's manual was no help at all here]

Engine Changes
After you've sorted out all the body related changes, you'll be ready to work on the engine. There are a few things that you should be aware of.

Crankshaft to Flyweel mounting
There is a stud that's driven into the crankshaft of automatic cars that the torque-converter locates on, you'll need to remove this stud in order to mount the flywheel to the crankshaft. We did this by welding a bracket with a nut on it to this stud, and winding a bolt through to pull it out of the hole. It didn't look like it was going to budge any other way.

Rear engine surrounds
These are made from stamped sheet metal, and differ from auto to manual, four bolts and they're changed.

Transmission mounting
The Manual transmission to body mounting is different to the automatic, seems that the manual one hangs a lot lower. This will have to be changed.

Radiator
The automatic radiator has an oil cooler integrated, I swapped this over for the manual radiator though you could probably use your existing one.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions or comments?
carl@deadrabbit.net
Last updated 2004-05-11

The link aint dead, works fine for me.

Im undertaking a auto to manual conversionm on my TN in November - December, i will let you know how it goes.

Hey there,

I'm the one responsible for the above article. Any questions - just ask!


Cheers