Speaking from experience (recent and too much!) of doing these mods myself, the 4-speed is a one-man job, drop it on your chest, roll it off and shove out from under car.

Sans fluid, it probably weighs 50-60lbs max.

The auto on the other hand, is enough for a hernia. I can fling aroung the 4-speeds all day, not break a sweat.

The auto is half the weight of the friggin' car (OK, not quite...., but the first time you do a routine drop-the-tranny-on-the-chest-to-remove, you'll understand the term "precordial thump"!)

As far as height, jackstands or ramp height at all four corners is adequate. A shop with a hydraulic lift and a german mechanic works MUCH better though..., so I'm told.

BTW, sorry Randy, didn't mean to hijack your thread. Just got excited about it again as this is the first week I've had the 300 on the road with the latest 4-speed (which also has a problem, won't downshift into 2nd - upshifts fine.)

As you can see, TomJ's transmission is nothing like the one I have...my donor was an early 1980 240D. The bell housing on mine is aluminum but the gearbox is cast iron. The full meal deal is 75-90 lbs. The automatic weighs at least 150-175 lbs.

And, if this particlular box is a stinker, I also have a parts car with a decent manual that I can rob.

Tom,BTW, thanks for the pointers, I'm going to do those o-rings before installing my box. One more thing: what model did your transmission come out of?

I have the car about 18"-20" off the ground. That's enough to get the transmission out but not with it staying on the jack...once I had the jack down to the ground, I slid the tranny onto the floor and dragged it out from under the car.

your manual transmission is a 3-piece and your engine is
a post 1980.
i am told that an adapter plate between the two might be
needed. without the adapter plate they will bolt up, but
not align.

dont know

don

I wonder how hard this would be to do this to a '79 SD? All the 6 cylinder 116s were available with 4 spd.'s so I wouldn't think it would be THAT bad. Mine is still a 617. Congratulations and good luck.
Thanks
David

The donor was an '82 240D. I think what you have is the older (stouter) one, but I think you'll need the alum plate to adapt to the engine and align it with the crank as someone else pointed out. Haven't done the swap with an older tranny like yours, so I don't know for sure.

Grim gaunt has one of those earlier trannys and I might take the other bad alum tranny down to his place and see what the exact differences are.

Keep us up to date on this, I'm looking at a TD this AM that reportedly has a bad tranny (lady wants me to repair or convert it.)

The difference between your tranny and mine had me fretting last night so, I searched everything I could find in the Forum about these swaps.

No joy finding any pics other than ours...but I think Larry Bible said in one thread that the adapter plate for the auto is essentially the same as the one for the manual. I'll have it out tonight and will compare the two.

Sidebar: the casting numbers on the tranny I have start with "115" so it's the older iteration.

FWIW, I have both adapters (the one with the auto and, I got the one from the donor 240D as well....with all that, I'm pretty sure that I can make it go.

Shop floor
 

I want to see a picture of that shop floor about three hours after you got Marlene up on stands. Oh thats right I bet you cant even see it!

S Leo, is RLeo practicing for your yellow bird ?

Excellent! You should be golden then.

Wish I were closer, we'd have that in and running in one day.

BTW, having a torch helps with bending the shifter linkages to fit (this is mandatory as the stock linkages are not even close - tranny is furthur back with the 5cyl, but due to the stock bends, you can't just cut off the length of the 5cyl over the 4.)

Also, having a 10mm (or maybe 12? Don't remember which?) die helps with re-threading the rods for the adjuster nuts once you've figured out the lenths and cut the linkage.

Once I had mine all properly bent with none touching and working right, I removed them and painted them with rust-stop enigine paint. I HATE anything that even LOOKS like rust!

One more thing, since it's out and easy to do, might as well take the shifter apart and clean/lube and replace any worn parts, then paint that too as it is exposed to the elements under the car.

Before:
http://home.comcast.net/~tomj/images/shifter4.JPG

Assy after ultrasonic cleaning and paint:

http://home.comcast.net/~tomj/images/shifter7a.JPG

On mine, all the friction surfaces were coated with a lubricant before re-assy (I use a dry graphite spray since it's under the car and would attract dirt/grime if a wet lube or grease is used):

http://home.comcast.net/~tomj/images/shifter9a.JPG

Re: Shop floor
 

Dude,
Needing those long extensions wasn't the only thing I learned from swapping the tranny on Passion Flower <GRIN>
Check out the first post, segment three, item #1 "power wash underside of car". Once Passion Flower left the building, you could eat off my shop floor but, then you'd feel guilty because you got it dirty.

BTW, remember those fractious cap-head screws that hold the starter? My car doesn't have them...it's got regular bolts.

What about the clutch pedal? Or are you going to use a hand clutch from a motorcycle:D I just had to change my clutch master so that part is fresh with me.

Randy, since you are a computer graphic artist... can you Photoshop those pictures of your transmission ? TomJ's pictures sure make your transmission look dirty.....even though it wasn't very.....

Pressure washed the manual last night and installed the slave cylinder. I can also report that this model of transmission does not have the O-ring seals under the shifter arms like the one-piece gearbox.

What a difference a fistfull of quarters makes:

Yeah. I'm going to see what all goes wrong, cause you know it will, then when the money bird lands at my house it'll be a smooth swap. but then again one reason this is sliding in so easy is cause we just did a tranny swap on my wagon. a dead auto for a soon-to-be-dead-because-water-got-in-it-auto.(just a hint of bitterness there) bad combo: bowdin cable not having a good seal and deep puddles.

Paybacks are h*ll...
 

Remember changing the clutch in the blue pick-up? You're just bitter because you'll have to lay on your back in the SNOW instead of me.