TxBmbleBee's Tranny Swap Complete(...sorta)! 2/7/10

by **TxBmbleBee** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:22 pm

and day 3. i got the bracket that goes up from the floor to the trim piece, ill take pics of it if anyone wants, also got the bracket that my stainless steel clutch line will clip onto on the firewall. they wanted $150 to take off the top bracket of the clutch cause it was welded on the firewall. im still unsure what im going to do about this but im pushing on. (i did not pay 150 for them to take it off..)

today i got my speedsource base and cable bushings in, im anticipating great things due to all that ive read

good news...i got a lead on 5 speed solara! they say they might have the mounts but i dont think they are sure what im talking about, i go tomorrow to look at it. cross your fingers.

as many who have done the swap before, i know this will take a while, like eye8pussies said, finding the parts really is a bitch. lets hope i get lucky tomorrow, the twm shortthrow has been ordered

thanks for everyone who has chimed in with their advice regarding what to buy
Centerforce Stage 1 Clutch <--im leaning toward this clutch too, and tomorrow i should order the fidanza fly, peace!

by **TxBmbleBee** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:57 pm

Sorry i have not updated in a while, ive been busy and there wasnt much to update either. So the swap is taking a while, big surprise right?? lol

The lead on the solara i got was a 5 speed, but it had caught fire, and most of the parts on it were junk, i did however convince the joto working at the junkyard to sell me the bracket plate off the transmission they pulled.

heres a pic of the new stick setup, yes that is the twm shortshifter, and although you cant see them i have the base bushings installed as well

top view (still waiting on boot i ordered from toyota and trd shifter from ebay)

here is the pedal setup, mounting the clutch was a lil biatch but rest assured its on their good and tite

my brake and clutch pedal stick out quite a bit more than my accelerator pedal...anyone else too? is it normal?

here is how i had to mount the top clutch bolt b/c i could not order the bracket and the junk yard would not take it off for me b/c it was welded on.

if you look in the top right hand corner you can see the screw surrounded by black goo

close up..(note this will be covered up and not show when car is done)

clutch master cylinder mounted up, fits nice and snug in the corner

empty engine bay, starter disconnected, and im starting to unplug crap from the pos auto tranny

the axles have proven to fight me every step of the way, they will lose
:evil:

shifter cables run through firewall, i do not have large hands so i was able to do it myself. but it took every ounce of insanity to finish and get them through the firewall correctly with all plates screwed in, those are the speedsource bushings attached..

err im running out of garage space..

more to come

by **Midias** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:05 pm

it will be worth every penny and minute. You get better acceleration and another good 20 horse to the wheels. Plus the fun of manual.

by **Ilovemylara** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:07 pm

nice.. Its really starting to come along.

by **ptballer** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 7:54 pm

Nice work. Your interior is cleannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!

by **TLMNICK** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:55 pm

I envy you bro.....I WISH i could do that to my gen1 convertible. I suppose its possible, but I'd be afraid to mess something up.

BTW, your interior is ABSOLUTELY MINT!!! not a single spec of dirt anywhere......my kinda car, thats for sure. Nice work man.

by **TxBmbleBee** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 1:17 pm

thanks guys yea the car rarely got driven the past few years so i guess thats part of the reason it looks the way it does. that is damons old carpet too so a piece of his car is living on lol

by **TxBmbleBee** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 6:46 pm

tis a good day for an update my fellow solara peeps!!

hahaha pia tranny

bye bye

just a lil shot of the setup

empty space woohoo (its sad that im this excited haha)

by **Ilovemylara** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:16 pm

out with the old, in with the 5 SPEED!!!

by **Gibson99** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:29 pm

my 2 pence... avoid ACT clutches... Tiem went thru 2 of them in the camry and both of them continuously overheated and qould stop disengaging - you could stomp the clutch to the floor as hard as you could and you still couldn't shift. you can see this in the videos from when we rode in tiem's car at tx2k2 - www.gibson99.com/camry/95se/tx2k2

I just remembered that I have the used ACT clutch and pressure plate and the stock flywheel sitting in my garage. the clutch itself still has some life in it, but tiem hated it. I never got to drive it with the ACT in it. It's got a centerforce stage 3 in the car right now with a fidanza.

if you end up having a hard time getting a fidanza or something, lemme know - i'll give ya the stock flywheel for cheap.

as for the folks who think a stage 3 is hard to drive on the street - i disagree. craig - you rode with me... did it seem like i was having a hard time being smooth with it? only thing i remember having a hard time with was getting traction in 1st and 2nd.

by **Eye8Pussies** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:04 pm

no...it's easy to drive on the street....and it engages smoothly....

but it's just not nice on the leg when you're stuck in nyc traffic for 4 hours...which is quite common here...

by **Ilovemylara** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:42 pm

http://cgi.ebay.ca/F1-RACING-STAGE-3-CL ... .m20.l1116
this seems like a good clutch, and at a decent price!

by **funboy102** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 12:18 am

I really like how you documented every stage of the way in this quest of swapping transmission. I enjoyed reading it. This should be sticky-ed so that whenever a noob comes on the board and start yapping about how he's gonna do a manual swap, we'll just say one thing...

http://www.solaraguy.com/viewtopic.php?t=43813

Good job so far dude!

by **Gibson99** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 6:22 am

Eye8Pussies wrote:no...it's easy to drive on the street....and it engages smoothly....

but it's just not nice on the leg when you're stuck in nyc traffic for 4 hours...which is quite common here...

well, no argument there... but then again, even in my miata which has a stock clutch which is about 100x lighter/easier than the camry, my leg still cramps up after an hour in traffic...

the funny thing about the miata is how light its clutch is. if i drive the camry home then hop in the miata, i ALWAYS end up stomping the clutch to the floor and it feels broken it's so light. and then i usually stall the miata (or very nearly so) because its clutch engages closer to the floor, and there's not as much feeling to the pedal as there is in the camry. ironic, isn't it? the actual sports car has a worse feeling clutch than my family sedan... heh... that said, the shifter in the miata feels about 100x better than the camry's trd short shifter, which is at least 10x better than the stock one.

by **Eye8Pussies** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 8:30 am

lol

then you probably don't want to use a stage 3 clutch for the camry....exact same as your miata....engages near the floor....but probably about 4 or 5 times heavier than the stock clutch...

as for the shifter...yeah, the stock shifter sucks balls on the camry. the short shifter makes it A LOT better...but what makes the biggest difference is replacing all the rubber bushings with the brass/ss ones and then you'll finally feel the gates. synthetic gear oil also makes it feel a lot better.

it's still no miata shifting, but it gets a lot closer. lol

TxBmbleBee's Tranny Swap Complete(...sorta)! 2/7/10

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