What's in the workshop? Its manual swap time!

[MikkiJayne]

As most of you know, I've been plotting a manual swap for some time. All the original manual parts are NLA and so almost everything needs to be fabricated, and importantly, repeatable. I've already got a list of five swaps to do, and I expect there will be more.

Please note: Ian has graciously made this forum section 'members only' while the swap is in prototype form. Please don't share any pics of this outside the forum community for now as this thread will contain a lot of my IP which I plan to market as a conversion service (not DIY!) once it's complete

Willing victim for the prototype is Bert's 2002 S8 'Fritz'. This has spent more time at my workshop in the last 12 months than at Bert's due to the perpetrator of the last gearbox service leaving the o-ring off the oil filter That trashed the torque converter as it was sucking air on bends, and in turn trashed the oil pump due to cavitation. A rebuilt gearbox killed by a £3 o-ring

I tried the box from my Avus FE - that was also fubar, so Fritz got pushed out the back of the workshop to hibernate while I developed the manual swap.

In the meantime, I picked up the black FE in Paignton to donate its interior, and since the Practical Classics shoot was looming, threw the gearbox from that in Fritz as a long shot. It worked, but only enough to get to the shoot. It wasn't really driveable every day, so Fritz went back in to hibernation back at Bert's home.

Fast forward to last Friday - I've got the prototype swap parts 95% complete with just a few little bits to finish off. This is my last 'free' week before the Germany meet so we decided to throw caution to the wind and just go for it Its a long shot tbh, but where's the fun in being sensible? Bert brought Fritz over yesterday and we discussed plans while he cooled down.

Brace yourself. This won't hurt a bit



A symbolic start:



Stripped the console out before I put him on the lift



Started on the drivetrain removal:







Because I need to get both inside and under the car for this job, I'll need to roll the car off the lift to open the doors. Thats a tad tricky when there's no front subframe, as I discovered with Vera's impromptu clutch hose replacement. On that basis, I decided to remove the engine and gearbox and leave the subframe in place. This was a mistake It would have been far easier to take the engine out the usual way and just put the subframe back on afterwards. Never mind!

So, this is where I got to by bedtime last night (6 hours elapsed, the engine would normally be out in 4-5)





Just the starter junction box, propshaft and engine mounts to remove tonight and the drivetrain will come out.

This is the pile of tools required to get this far:



Meet the world's worst moth. This guy was flying around the lights since I left the roller door open in the dark. Somehow he managed to crash-land upside down on the floor and couldn't right himself. I gave him some paper towel to grab hold of and he figured it out in the end.



More tonight