This is going to be a bigger post with most of the information I used to make this swap work. I have to give a lot of credit to the people who have done this before me as they made it MUCH easier. I pulled information from a bunch of different posts and I'll try to link to all of them here.
First I want to outline all of the parts that were necessary.
I happened to find 2000 Tacoma in the upstate of South Carolina with roughly 250k miles on it. From it I pulled -
- r150f transmission
- clutch
- flywheel
- master cylinder
- slave cylinder
- transfer case to front diff driveshaft
- rear driveshaft
- transfer case
- pedals
- shifters
- clutch hard lines
Cost $300.00
It's important to mention that I forgot to pull the transmission mount off of the donor vehicle. Had I done that I wouldn't have had to buy one.
The Parts I had to buy - Total Cost: $500
3 Transmission bolts: 90180-11293
3 Long transmission bolts: 90119-12287
1 long starter bolt: 90105-10221
2002 transfer case bushing:
Marlin Crawler Toyota Shifter Seats - Red, White, Blue
Clutch Kit:
Marlin Crawler Toyota Shifter Seats - Red, White, Blue
Throwout Bearing:
Transmission Clutch Pilot Bearing, All Toyota Trucks Except 4.6L, 5.7L Tundra
Transmission Mount:
1995.5-2004 Toyota Tacoma | 1996-2002 4Runner | 1993-1998 T100 R150F Transmission Mount (12371-07020)
Shift Fork Dust Boot:
1995.5-2004 Toyota 3.4L 5VZFE V6 Clutch Fork Boot - R150F by Toyota (31126-34010)
Flywheel:
https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p/carquest-new-flywheel-50-135/15260048-P
redline mt-90:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002INX20C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
transfer case oil:
https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p...l-synthetic-gear-oil-1-quart-vv975/10612910-P
transmission shifter bushing:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NF1Q2QW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The Grand Total for all parts was roughly $800.
Not too bad if you ask me.
Now for the how to of the swap. I'm going to go ahead an apologize now if I miss something.
In my mind, this is how I planned to approach the process. I didn't stray too far from it surprisingly.
1. Remove Front Seats
2. Remove Shifter
3. Remove flexplate
4. Remove transmission
5. mount flywheel/clutch
6. drill holes for master cylinder
7. mount pedals
8. mount vsc/abs ecu
9. Replace bushings / rear input shaft seal
10. Attach manual transmission
11. attach transfer case
12. wire NSS
The removal of the interior was pretty straight forward, nothing unexpected here. I wish I had documented this, but I just started unbolting stuff.
I removed basically the whole interior because I had planned to replace the carpet. To do the swap, you just need to remove the front seats, center console, and the panel under the steering wheel for easier access to the pedals.
From here it was time to get the auto trans out. The hardest part for me was the damn flex plate. It was pretty much a two person job.
To drop the auto transmission I had to remove the following:
- starter
- shifter
- front and rear driveshaft
- all transmission oil lines
- transfer case
I had seen threads of people dropping the transmission with the transfer case but it was much easier to do it separately.
I had watched this video a couple of time to familiarize myself with the process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZDSjlxl2Q4
Jump to roughly 25 minutes in to see the how to drop the transfer case. Tim is the absolute man by the way.
Back to that flexplate. It was a two person job. I had a buddy spin the motor for me while I laid underneath the truck with a foot long 14mm ratchet to get the 6 bolts holding the flex plate to the torque convertor. There is not a lot of room to work down there and using a long ratchet is much easier than trying to cobble together a bunch of swivel sockets like I initially did.
Also - I bought these lights to stick to the underside of the truck.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07G9X19G1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I can not express how handy they were. I dropped them in the oil drain pan several times, stepped on them and they have held up great.
Back to the transmission - With that flex plate unbolted, the transmission was ready to come. It was 6 bolts - 3 long and 3 short. I linked to them in the parts list. I had the worst time getting hold of them. I couldn't find the part numbers to save my life and the rep at my dealership was pretty much as unhelpful as he could be.
With the transmission out it looked like this.
This was roughly the half way point for the job. This is when I turned my attention to the pedals and master cylinder mounting. I absolutely HATED this part of the job. There was not much room to work with underneath the steering wheel.
To start, I made a template on the firewall and used a 1 1/4" drill bit to punch out a hole for the Master Cylinder.
From there I mounted the two new pedals. If you poke around under there you should see pretty easily what is going on.
You need to remove your factory brake pedal as it is to wide for the clutch pedal to fit. It's one spring and a long bolt that acts as a swivel.
Fitting the clutch pedal up there was a real pain in the ass and at least in my situation meant moving the vsc/abs ecu to a different location.
This is looking up underneath the pedals with the foot kick panel installed. I snapped it back in place for fitment purposes.
I had to trim the oem mounting tabs off of the ecu since they got in the way. I did keep one little tab so I could run a zip tie through it and a 10mm bolt hole on the brake pedal. Get that sucker tight so it doesn't rattle. In all the threads I read, I saw no mention of this so who knows if its the right way to do it. It worked for me though.
With the pedals in and the master cylinder mounted I turned my attention back to the r150f install.
First I put a new throwout bearing in since the 5vz that had the a340f didn't have one in it (obviously).
I bolted up the flywheel and clutch. (I forgot to get a picture of the clutch mounted.
I replaced the input shaft seal, sorry no pictures. This was straight forward, a seal puller and it was out in seconds. I didn't have one so a buddy did it for me. The install consisted of setting it in the hole and tapping it in with a block of wood. May or may not be proper but it worked.
I replaced the transfer case shift bushing because they were roached.
While I was there I put new shifter bushings in. They didn't look as bad but it was worth doing.
This is when I decided to go ahead and test fit the r150f up there. I did not have to remove the sway bar like some people were suggesting.
What I did not know was not all the auto transmission bolts would work on the r150f. 3 of them were the correct length, but 3 were not. You can use your auto trans starter and 1 bolt, but will need an additional.
3 Short Transmission bolts: 90180-11293
3 Long Transmission bolts: 90119-12287
1 long starter bolt: 90105-10221
It was kind of difficult to get the transmission seated properly. I took me two tries to get it aligned. You'll feel it kind of pop in to place. I was roughly 1/4" from being flush to the block so that is when I started threading bolts in. I just tightened the bolts down going from side to side until it pulled itself together.
With the transmission seated I wanted to see how the shifters were going to fit. You will need to cut the little cross member that separates the auto shifter and transfer case.
Now for the transfer case. This is the part I was most excited about. It meant I was almost there. I also wanted to retain the original functionality. I did have a transmission jack but I couldn't get it to fit my jack. I ended up calling my good friend and we strong-armed the transfer case in to position. It was a real son of a ***** and in hindsight I would have just bought a different jack.
IT'S IMPORTANT TO NOTE: BOLT THE TRANSFER CASE TO THE TRANSMISSION BEFORE YOU ATTACH THE TRANSMISSION MOUNT.
If you bolt the mount up first you are going to have clearance issues when trying to thread the bottom bolts in. Odds are if you removed the transfer case, you'll encounter the same thing on removal.
Now you can bolt up the transmission mount and crossmember. You can use your factory crossmember.
From here on out it was really straight forward. I've read a bunch of different things about driveshaft lengths and the need for a spacer.
This may just apply to 01-02 4runners retaining the factory transfer case, but I
DID NOT have to replace or add a spacer to my rear drive shaft. I mated up perfectly, as did the front. Looking at the slip yoke, it doesn't look any different than when I removed it the first time.
I put the transfer case shifter in.
Routed the automatic wiring harness back to a factory-ish location and plugged the transfer case back up.
I had drained both the trans/ transfer case so I had to refill them.
I used Redline MT-90 in the transmission seeing as most people said it was decent stuff. It took roughly 3qts. I filled until it came out the hole.
Same thing with the transfer case but I used valvoline 75w-90 since it was cheaper. It took like 1.25qts. Filled it till it ran out.
I caught hell bleeding the clutch. I spent about an hour pumping the clutch trying to bleed it before I got fed up.
Here is a little Tip: Bench bleed the master cylinder. fill it with some fluid and pump it up by hand to get any air out. cap off the side so it doesn't leak.
Same concept applies to the slave cylinder.
Once I bench bled it, I hooked up the factory lines (which I will be replacing with some stainless lines) and gravity bled the lines. I waited until fluid was running out the bottom lines to then hook it up to the slave cylinder.
With the clutch bled, it was pretty much time to tackle the wiring. There were three plugs that went unused from the auto transmission.
I haven't totally finished the wiring - still trying to get the clutch cancel and cruise sorted out.
This will at least get you going though. The plug you are looking for looks like this.
I've been borrowing from this thread - It seems to be what I need.
Auto to 5 speed swap, need your input!
To get your vehicle to start, you have to trick your auto ecu in to thinking its in neutral/ start. To do that you need to jump the black and black-white wire. The proper way to do this would be to snip the wires and use a connector. I however opted to use a trigger spring.
Anyways - It worked. Truck fired right up.
I've put about 100 miles on it so far with no hiccups. I did however need to tighten down the transmission mount. It wasn't as tight as it could have been. Multimode works great - engages while doing up to 55 mph. 4Lo is amazing. I can let off the clutch and it just pulls itself.
To celebrate my buddy and I went out for a stroll on his property.
