Since July 20th I have been stockpiling new parts for the digimax's VG manual transplant.

During that time I was trying to decide if I wanted to use my good automatic trans from the wrecked parts car or go ahead and swap in the manual 5 speed.

Well, I have decided to swap in the manual. I have pulled the old engine and failing automatic trans out of the digimax, the original engine will not be used either.

For the past couple of weeks I have been replacing items on the donor engine that came out of my 91 parts car. So far I have replaced the water pump, thermostat, engine temp sensor, rear main crank seal, oil pan gasket, camshaft oil seals, updated timing belt to the round tooth by replacing camshaft/crank sprockets and new tensionor. A used flywheel was installed. A new XTD stage 2 clutch kit and throw out bearing installed and used manual 5 speed mounted to the engine.

The donor engine just had all 6 injectors replaced and ran flawlessly. I still have a tone of work to do before I can install the engine. The remanned steering rack has to go in first followed by new lower control arm assemblies, sway bar bushings, outer tie rods and so on.

I have a ton of pics of my progress I just can't post them with my phone. Will figure this out later.

 

Imagine if everyone with analog gauges liberally referred to their car as "Analmax".

 

lost it

 

My car has been a real analmax lately

 

Its been a long weekend but the engine and 5 speed are finally in the max.

I installed the remanned steering rack with new bushings and outer tie rods. I got a lot done but wow still so much more to do.

 

How does the digital cluster knows if how much mileage your car has when you swap a new one in?

 

They usually look down at the pedals to see how worn they are.

 

OK, I've got the CV shafts in, lower control arms installed, exhaust down pipe back in, shifter rods installed and functional. I just installed the ac condenser and radiator.

Now I am trying to decide what gear oil to use in the manual trans. 80/90 synthetic or something else.

I guess its time to install the clutch and brake pedal assemblies and wire up the reverse lights and neutral safety switch, this should be interesting.

 

The law of the land around here is to use Redline MT-90. I use it in both of my VE's

Prior to that I was using some Sta-Lube GL-4 gear oil from Napa but they stopped carrying it (at least my local one did). It was really notchy in the cold.

I would absolutely advise to go with true GL-4 but I think you'll have a hard time finding true GL-4 anywhere locally and as far as I know the only true GL-4 around is Redline synthetic.

 

i think amsoil has something that works with our manual trans.

 

Thanks James92SE for that info. I went to Napa, auto zone, advance auto, Oriellys auto parts and to our local tractor supply and none of those places had what I was looking for.

I did find a gallon of Red line MT90 75W/90W synthetic on eBay for $65 bucks so I went that route.

 

Got the engine fired up yesterday. I didn't let it run long because there's no gear oil in the*transmission, maybe 20 seconds or so but at least it fired up.

The check engine light is on but I looked at it this morning and found the 02 sensor unplugged so I'll take care of that this afternoon.

I've got the inhibitor switch from the old automatic hooked up and will need to sort those 4 wires out on the trans.

I still have the clutch pedal to install and that will be the hardest part of the entire manual swap into the digimax.

I still have a few things left to do and I hope to be done with this by the weekend. I can't wait to see how the max drives with new suspension parts under the front.

 

I've got the max back on the road now. I drove it to work this morning and when I parked the rpm would not go back to 800 as before. It was fine at lunch and on the way home. I might have to re adjust the idle when I swap out the ecu.

I also have a slight hesitation around 1800 up through about 2200 and I think that might be the TPS or the distributor as it is making a loud whining noise.

The manual 5 speed shifts perfectly with no grinding between gears, I could not have picked a better trans from the junk yard than this one.

I had the front end aligned this afternoon and all was good on the way home, no more jolts or wondering all over the road anymore.

Cruise control does not work anymore but that should be resolved when I get the wiring on the trans figured out. Right now i only have the big black and brown wires tied together from the engine harness.

I am going to attempt charging the AC system tomorrow and if that works out with no major issues I can deal with the rest one item at a time and there won't be much left to do.

 

Sounds like everythings coming together nicely It must feel good to finally take it for a run after all the work you put into it by yourself. Hope you get that idle issue resolved o.k. Does sound like the TPS or IACV or possibly a vacume line somewhere? I tend to get a bit of a high idle after putting mine into park but it only happens every once in awhile.

 

Thanks Anthony, yeah it is good to have the max back on the road again.

I changed out the distributor with the one that was in the engine I took out, that solved the loud whining noise but did nothing for the stumble/hesitation.

I replaced all of the vacuum lines when I had the engine out. I will go back and do a smoke test on the intake later this week. If the vacuum system checks out then I'll move onto the TPS or IACV all though I cleaned it while the engine was still running in the parts car and it was running great then. The parts car did have a loud exhaust leak on the rear manifold so that's probably why I could not hear the distributor whine like it did. When I pulled it out and turned the shaft it did not sound good at all.

 

Well atleast you had a spare distributor with a good bearing to fix the whining. Did you change the coil under the distributor along with the wires? I had a problem with my max not firing but would crank strong. After changing the fuel pump and having the harness gone through to find the problem which kept popping my engine control fuze. After having the harness gone through to find the dead short it wound up being the green swirl valve control solenoid itself but after changing it and maybe it was just all in my head but i think it got rid of a fair bit of previous hesitation i had. Do you have a spare TPS to swap?

 

I used the coil from the 91 parts car because the one that was on the digimax when I got it was burnt and corroded. I have a ton of spare parts from the 91 that I am keeping, most of those parts are in containers and stored out in the barn.

Anyway, I have fixed the hesitation/stumble issue. As it turns out it was the MAFS on the air box. I used the one from the 91 but did not realize it was a 4 prong and the one originally on the digimax was a 5 prong, I don't know what the difference would be between the two but the engine runs flawlessy now so I'm gonna leave it be.

Tomorrow when I get off work I'm heading over to the HVAC shop to have my AC charged.

 

Maybe they had changed to a 5 prong maf after 91. I'm not sure what the difference would be either. If im not mistaken the injectors may have been a little different so maybe an extra wire was needed for signal to the ecu? Anyway good to hear its now running smoothly.

 

So I've had a few issues that started Tuesday morning, thankfully I have other vehicles to drive.

The first problem I had Tuesday morning was a completely dead battery. This was caused by the rubber pad on the brake peddle, I found what was left of it on the floor mat. Down came the steering column again, geez I'm getting good at that one, problem fixed.

Second problem is that I have a couple minor fluid leaks. One is either the rear main seal, oil pan gasket or the trans input shaft seal all of witch I did replace. That leak is very minor, a few drops on the floor overnight is about all I see.

The other trans leak is on the shift fork, I did not replace this one seal when everything was out but sure do wish I had done it. It don't matter anyway because the transmission will have to come out anyway to fix the other leak.

The last issue that popped up is an annoying squeaking noise in the front suspension on the passenger side. I replaced everything under there too. It seems to be coming from the rear mount of the lower control arm but not 100% certain of it.

I'll have time to look at it more this weekend and find out what's going on, the max drives great down the road and doesn't shake or go all over the road like it did before.

 

Well I found the fluid leak. It turned out to be the rear portion of the oil pan gasket. My only thought would be that the oil was being forced rearwards as the car was driven and therefore ended up on the bottom of the shift fork.

I cleaned everything up and wrapped the shift fork with a plastic bag and taped it in place.

I tightened the oil pan again, it was loose so hopefully this resolves that issue. I torqued the oil pan bolts to 8ft lbs. So far no leaks from there yet but I will keep checking every day.

I ordered a new N/S reverse lamp switch and will install that when it gets here.

I went ahead and wired up the clutch cancel switch. I used the yellow/green and yellow black from the SMJ connector on the trans computer. I pulled those to wires out of the connector. I made a wire harness that went from that over to the switch on the clutch pedal.

I made another wire harness for the connectors on the engine harness. I have one side jumped with a single wire at the end. This will allow me to unplug that connector and plug the NS reverse switch in once the plug with the jumper wire is removed.

The engine will only start if the clutch is depressed to the floor. The cruise cancel switch is wired up and the cruise control works just like it did before. If I tap the clutch pedal or brake pedal cruise control is cancelled.

Today I am taking apart 4 front seats to make 2 good ones. I am going to use the seat covers and foam backing from one passenger seat to make a good comfy driver seat.

I have one complete set of seat covers in the wash now and will run them through again. They are very dirty. I will add some black dye to get some color back in the covers.