Tranny Swap and More

[Smallpants]

4 hours ago, dave-r said:

One modification you may want to consider before you get everything out back together is, I suppose, since it was automatic my pedals are TIGHT!! Like had to try every pair of shoes I own to find a pair that fit between the transmission hump and the brake pedal. I know one other member that has cut 1/2 to 3/4 inch off the right side of brake and clutch pedal and re welded back on the left hand side to add clearance. I will be doing it shortly as I don't want to be stuck wearing skate shoes all the time!!

Caveat, I do wear 13-14 shoes depending on brand, so if you have smaller (normal) sizes feet you may be fine!!

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This is good to know. I like to heel-toe when I drive so I'm pretty particular about the spacing of my pedals. 

 

The good news is that I almost exclusively wear skateboard shoes so it might not be a problem for me at all. ? 

[Smallpants]

11 hours ago, TobyB said:

Yup, smallbox is 'service needed' indicator.

 

Looks like you had a mechanical clutch pedalbox.

Or at least, pedal/

Someone might want that...

 

i

Good info. Thanks.

[AustrianVespaGuy]

8 hours ago, Smallpants said:

This is good to know. I like to heel-toe when I drive so I'm pretty particular about the spacing of my pedals. 

 

+10, then it's good that you're swapping out the transmission! There is NO better car / pedals for heel-n-toeing than the 2002!  I've decided that it's a combination of them being bottom pivot, well positioned, and the brake being only mildly-boosted and therefore providing you a good solid pivot point for you foot.  Could never heel/toe my old WRX very well because the brake was so boosted/soft that it was really tricky to modulate the brakes properly and still get the right amount of 'kick' to the gas pedal.  Also stopped my cold from getting a new BRZ as the brake and gas pedals were in such vastly different planes that my foot simply couldn't reach both at the same time very well.  Always makes me shake my head and wonder how they were able to get this just PERFECT 50 years ago and then went and f*cked it up on basically every car made since, but oh well.  To be fair I'm sure rust, etc. had a lot to do with dooming the bottom pivot layout and rightly so, but still. . . I agree the spacing to the tunnel is a bit close though, particularly for those with larger feet and/or wide shoes, but this hasn't ever been much of an issue for me.  Long post to say I think you certainly doing this for the right reasons and I hope that you enjoy shifting it as much as I do when you're done!

[Son of Marty]

I have wide feet and with the wider auto tunnel not all my shoes would fit well between the gas and brake pedal so I wound up grinding off the brake and clutch pedal foot pads and off setting them. I moved the brake pedal over about 1" and moved the clutch over to the edge and adding a gusset for support, works great.

[dave-r]

Not to beat a topic to death, the closeness of the pedals is fine, but with my setup currently I cannot hit just the gas pedal as when I wear most shoes my foot is against transmission tunnel and the left side of shoe is on brake pedal..cannot hit just accelerator!! Anyway hope all is going smoothly..great fun as a manual car!! Have fun!

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[TobyB]

...I just bend the pedals a bit.  The stems are not all that strong.  

I too need more room around the accelerator, and it's nice to have the brake 

closer to the clutch for left- footing it.

 

t

 

[Smallpants]

6 hours ago, AustrianVespaGuy said:

 

+10, then it's good that you're swapping out the transmission! There is NO better car / pedals for heel-n-toeing than the 2002!  I've decided that it's a combination of them being bottom pivot, well positioned, and the brake being only mildly-boosted and therefore providing you a good solid pivot point for you foot.  Could never heel/toe my old WRX very well because the brake was so boosted/soft that it was really tricky to modulate the brakes properly and still get the right amount of 'kick' to the gas pedal.  Also stopped my cold from getting a new BRZ as the brake and gas pedals were in such vastly different planes that my foot simply couldn't reach both at the same time very well.  Always makes me shake my head and wonder how they were able to get this just PERFECT 50 years ago and then went and f*cked it up on basically every car made since, but oh well.  To be fair I'm sure rust, etc. had a lot to do with dooming the bottom pivot layout and rightly so, but still. . . I agree the spacing to the tunnel is a bit close though, particularly for those with larger feet and/or wide shoes, but this hasn't ever been much of an issue for me.  Long post to say I think you certainly doing this for the right reasons and I hope that you enjoy shifting it as much as I do when you're done!

We apparently share similar taste in cars. My daily driver is a 16 WRX. I think Subaru must have heard your complaints because the new model seems to be much better for heel-toe.

 

Glad to hear I made the right call with my 02.

[Smallpants]

Thanks for all the pedal advice guys. A lot of good recommendations. I'll make sure to really play around with the car before I go to the trouble of putting in the new carpeting.   

[TVeye]

I had the same problem with my '91 318is. Always had to plan out which shoes to wear when I drove that car.

My '72 240z was even worse. My size 11's are fine in the 1600.

 

My daily is also a '16 WRX.

Edited June 11, 2018 by TVeye

[Smallpants]

Forgive me if this is a little incoherent but I'm feeling a bit woozy. 

 

Going from auto to manual means I need a tach. Since the speedometer in my current cluster is not working, the simplest solution seemed to be to buy a cluster with a tach, which I did.

 

Now it should be noted, I hate when instruments don't work in my cars. Hate..... it! Drives me crazy. So not wanting to deal with the possibility of this I decided to take the cluster I bought to North Hollywood Speedometer & Clock to have them check it out before I installed it.

 

I just heard back from them and this is where things start to get fuzzy. Fuel level and temperature were fine. So far so good. Then things took a nasty turn. Tach is completely dead and will cost $245 just to fix that problem. After this my vision started to go black and my hearing became intermittent. I think he said something about a complete motherboard rebuild but I'm not sure because the room started to spin and I was doing my best just to keep my balance. Then he said something about the speedo also not working and that costing $180 to fix. I'm not sure what's wrong with it, not because he didn't tell me but because the whole conversation somehow switched to Italian and for a few minutes I thought I was in a Fellini film. After a brief loss of consciousness, I finally came to and told the polite gentleman on the other end of the phone not to do the work and set the cluster aside for me to pick up. 

 

The good news is I have my plans for tonight sorted which will consist of researching instrument cluster options for the car. So there's that.

 

 

[TVeye]

I have 2 clusters that have different issues.

Used ones are going for an average of $100. Tested ones may go for more.

[Smallpants]

For me an aluminum flywheel was a must for this car. With the modest power of the m10, the added responsiveness a light weight flywheel makes a huge difference. I've been looking forward to getting this in the car. 

 

 

 

I made this crude little tool for changing the clutch on my E30 back in the day. I use one of the bolts from bell housing to lock this against the flywheel while I torque the bolts. 

 

 

On the m10 my little locking tool didn't quite fit so I pulled out the grinder and made some modifications.

 

 

No bonus points for style but it works.

 

 

All the bolts torqued and ready to go. 

 

 

I was hoping to get the clutch and pressure plate on today also but realized when I went to do it I was missing the bolts for the pressure plate. I'll get to that tomorrow.

[Smallpants]

Picked up some bolts for the pressure plate and installed the clutch and pressure plate.

 

 

With the manual transmission I need a brake fluid reservoir with 3 outlets. Here's the Ireland Engineering brake fluid reservoir kit. Having an automatic I also didn't have the pipe that goes from the clutch master cylinder up towards the reservoir. Ireland had a used one that I slapped some paint on and it's ready to go. 

 

 

Maybe it's just me but getting the rubber grommet with the pipe into the clutch master cyclinder was a PITA. I lubricated the grommet with brake fluid but it was hard to get leverage on it to push it in. Eventually, I found that using a #11 flare nut wrench allowed me to get some pressure down on the grommet and get it in. 

 

 

The shinny, new reservoir looks out of place in my dingy engine bay.

 

 

The 4 speed I bought still had the old slave cylinder in it. Getting it out looked like it was going to be a challenge so I've been saturating it in PB Blaster over the past few days. The ring clips were rusty and frozen. One came off today with little trouble but the other wouldn't budge.

 

 

Time to pull out the torch.

 

 

After about 5 minutes of heat and two ginger taps with the hammer it was out. 

 

 

The last thing I did today was pull the two piece speedo cable with the "service needed" box. My speedo didn't work before and since the cable might have had something to do with that I got a new one. I don't see any need for "service needed" box so I'm going with a 1 piece cable. 

 

[Chris_B]

After reading your post I am wondering, with all of the work you are doing, why you are not installing a 5 speed.

[Smallpants]

1 hour ago, Chris_B said:

After reading your post I am wondering, with all of the work you are doing, why you are not installing a 5 speed.

 

It's a good question. The simple answer is I don't need that 5th gear or at least not at the price it would cost me. This car is almost exclusively for driving in the canyons here in SoCal. Ten minutes from my house is what I believe to be the best driving road in greater Los Angeles. And considering the outrageous cost of good 5 speeds (particularly here in Southern California) and the fact I just won't be driving this car in many situations where I would need overdrive, it's not worth it to me. 

 

Now I completely understand why almost everyone else would prefer a 5 speed--more comfortable cruising speed, better gas milage, improved resale value. I completely get it. 

 

But consider things from my perspective. I've already established I won't use that 5th gear much. Not being my daily driver, I don't drive the car enough for gas milage to be any kind of significant factor. And resale value isn't important because my 11 year old daughter has already sworn me to giving her the car someday. On the other hand, 4 speeds are dirt cheap and plentiful, lighter, and equivalent when it comes to performance until you need that overdrive. For me the 4 speed is a no brainer. 

Edited June 14, 2018 by Smallpants