Hey, this is my first post.. a few weeks ago I "inherited" a 92 Maxima SE from my uncle, who is moving to europe and wanted to keep the car in the family. Before I really saw the car, I was like "Mehh I want a Jetta" But then I went down to Boston and I drove the car... I quickly forgot about the german car and was in love with my potential car.

So, my uncle decided to give it to me(I offered him money but he wouldn't accept it! He's ****ing awesome.)

There's very few problems with it.. two holes in the header pipe, a little rust under the spoiler, and that's about it. I have $2500 left, since the car was free, so I don't have much of a problem fixing those problems.

But.. there's one problem...

It's an automatic. I hate automatics, now, I can't complain because it was free... but if there's some way I can convert it to manual, it would make this car absolutely perfect for me.

I do not know all that much about cars(I know what you're going to say, "If you don't know about cars, you have no business trying to mess with the transmission" but I don't mind having my car apart for a while, and I have a couple of friends that are pretty knowledgable about cars, so please ignore the fact I'm a complete newbie.) So, I'm not quite sure how possible/feasible this is.. I thought it might not be THAT hard, untill I remembered I'd have to install a clutch and everything.. so it got me wondering if this a smart idea or not. I'd hate to take my whole car apart and not be able to put it back together again.

What's involved in a transmission conversion?

Thanks

edit: I would have searched for this, but, the search function doesn't seem to be working.

 

Clowd, I see we are in the same position. I once had the privelege to own a Ve 5-spd... that was until i lost my valvetrain. Now i am left with an auto 92 max. The best possible way would be to find a donor car and take all the parts you need out of it. You could find the donor car at a junkyard or even on the forums... just ask around... I have never done one so wait around till one of the moderators can answer your question.
Mr. Gone, Where are you?

 

Ah, yes, I'm going to head over to a junkyard tommorow and get a few peices I need, if I can find a whole car with a good tranny, I would be ecstatic.

 

If/When you do the conversion document it well and do a writeup , that way we can stop seeing this question every week

 

Clowd I might be able to help since my auto tranny blew this past friday night and my car is sitting in the back yard of my house waiting to be taken apart. I would have to take pics of the auto to manual conversion to help u out and possibly other org members. now i have all the parts or i think i have all the parts.

now maybe internetautomar can help me with some questions here: just that i need to know if i need the ECU from the 5-speed max to work in my max or do i keep the one thats in mine that works with the auto tranny??? also will my hubs and axles work with the 5-speed tranny or will have to go back to the other maxima and take those out??? and lastly are there any other wirings that i need to do because i noticed that in the 5-speed it only has one harness and in my auto it has like 3 harness's. sorry for all the questions but i've been tryin' to do this swap for the past 2 years and all i needed was just the tranny thats all.

 

BTW: i took the 5-speed tranny out of a '91 SE black with a full Kaminari kit and mine is a '93 GXE/falSE.

 

Keep your ECU. 93 used different injectors. and I'm not too sure about the programing for the motor.
I do know that the trans part of the ECU will just sit there and not affect the motor, so keep your A/T ECU

 

can u put a manual into a 94 gxe?

 

yes ......

 

how much for a 90 se 5spd trans?

 

cool, ha. so how much for a 94 gxe manual tranny?

 

i'm most worried about the cost and how long it's gonna take to get done... i need to drive 30km to get to work 5 days a week, i can't have my max down for like 2-3 weeks...

 

No GXE's came with 5-speeds. You can get the 5 speed from a VG SE model. You might be able to do the VE swap but a few other parts are needed to swapout. Best bet is to find a wrecked 5 speed at the junkyard tow it to your house then take your tranny out and swap every last part from your donor car. That way you will only need a set of good tools and some knowledge of what you're doing and you'll be done in about 20 hours considering that you can replace all the wear and tear items and a few extras before installation. Total cost will be about 2grand after the exedy clutch and donor car.

 

ok right now im taking my max apart to do the auto to manual conversion. now i need to seriously know if i need to get axles and hubs from a '91 SE 5-speed for my '93 GXE or will my '93 GXE auto axles and hubs fit right onto the '91 SE 5-speed tranny??? now as for the harnesses once i disconnect all of my harnesses i will be left with auto tranny harnesses which is about 6 of them and the manual tranny only has 2 harnesses. do i need to do some re-wiring and on top of that what is the best way to make the holes for the clutch master cylinder and pedal through the firewall??? sorry for all the questions but i need to have my car finished by next week.

thanks,
rick

 

You can use the automatic axles and hubs. You will have to do some rewiring. And to drill the holes, use a drill and then get a hole saw attachment type thing that will go onto your drill for the largest hole

 

what kind of rewiring do i have to??? better yet do u have a write-up about the rewiring??? now internetautomar told me to keep my '93 ECU and not put in the '91 SE 5-speed ECU correct or do i have to also swap out my ECU???

thanks,
rick

 

no ECU swapping needs to be done. I'm running the automatic ECU and when I had my JWT ECU, I bought it off a guy who was using it in an automatic.

The wiring is pretty simple. I racked my brain for the longest time until someone finally told me what to do Look for the thread started by fugi43 or something like that. I explained the wiring to get it started in therer

 

KLoWnPR109 did u get ur reverse lights to work with ur tranny??? cuz i finished the conversion and the car works fine and runs great but my reverse lights don't work. did u make urs to work???

 

Do you have an FSM? It has wiring diagrams, you will need to wire the position switch.

My conversion was a VE, so its different.

 

yeah its already done i just had to rewire the park/neutral safety switch. now i also want to know how the hell do i make my reverse lights work???