I purchased a one owner 78,000 mile '89 Toyota Supra 7M-GTE with Auto Transmission. The original owner must have never changed the oil. The Automatic worked fine until I changed the pitch black oil in it. I changed the filter, flushed and replaced the transmission fluid, shortly thereafter it died. Buzzing noises in the torque converter, mis-shifting etc. I should have left it alone and just kept driving it with that black oil!
I decided to change to a Manual after I found a NOS R154 Transmission with ZERO miles on it, new in Toyota Box. The process of obtaining the miscellaneous parts was challenging to say the least. But I stuck with it and was able to find most of what I needed.
The following is information on how I adapted the Auto Shifter opening to a Manual one.
I started by removing material at the rear of the opening, I only removed about 3/8" to allow for the manual transmission to protrude through the opening. This also would allow you to go back to an auto as the seal would still make contact around the modified opening. See picture Below:
I removed the metal with a 90 degree grinder motor and a 3" cutoff wheel, followed by rotory files and hand files. After material removed I applied Self Etching Primer to bare metal with a small paint brush.
Picture after material removal & painting:
Then I prepared a ring from some stainless Steel, see picture:
Cutout opening, spot welded metric bolts on bottom of ring and ground flat. I then applied foam insulating material on back side, see picture:
Here's a picture with hardware installed:
Hardware and boot ready to assemble:
Thread Locker used to install hex head bolt. I didn't want to use a lock washer as it would have increased the overall height of the fastener and interfere with the rubber boot, see picture:
Installed lower Rubber Boot (Not sure how to get it over the shift knob without damaging, I tore mine a little while sliding it over the shifter lever), see picture:
Upper boot & hardware installed (Also view from below tunnel), see picture:
Some people would just cut it out and rough it in. I didn't want to butcher the car up and wanted to keep it pretty much stock so that if I wanted to swap back to an auto it wouldn't be a problem.
Hopefully this helps someone else. Thanks for looking!
I decided to change to a Manual after I found a NOS R154 Transmission with ZERO miles on it, new in Toyota Box. The process of obtaining the miscellaneous parts was challenging to say the least. But I stuck with it and was able to find most of what I needed.
The following is information on how I adapted the Auto Shifter opening to a Manual one.
I started by removing material at the rear of the opening, I only removed about 3/8" to allow for the manual transmission to protrude through the opening. This also would allow you to go back to an auto as the seal would still make contact around the modified opening. See picture Below:
I removed the metal with a 90 degree grinder motor and a 3" cutoff wheel, followed by rotory files and hand files. After material removed I applied Self Etching Primer to bare metal with a small paint brush.
Picture after material removal & painting:
Then I prepared a ring from some stainless Steel, see picture:
Cutout opening, spot welded metric bolts on bottom of ring and ground flat. I then applied foam insulating material on back side, see picture:
Here's a picture with hardware installed:
Hardware and boot ready to assemble:
Thread Locker used to install hex head bolt. I didn't want to use a lock washer as it would have increased the overall height of the fastener and interfere with the rubber boot, see picture:
Installed lower Rubber Boot (Not sure how to get it over the shift knob without damaging, I tore mine a little while sliding it over the shifter lever), see picture:
Upper boot & hardware installed (Also view from below tunnel), see picture:
Some people would just cut it out and rough it in. I didn't want to butcher the car up and wanted to keep it pretty much stock so that if I wanted to swap back to an auto it wouldn't be a problem.
Hopefully this helps someone else. Thanks for looking!
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