Spent the day swapping out my OEM 5sp for a Grannas Racing T56 and McLeod RXT clutch. This was my first time replacing a transmission. Took about 8 hours with a buddy (who knew what he was doing) helping. The old tranny dropped out really easily, took maybe 45 mins to get it down and out.
I cleaned everything up, got the new flywheel, discs, pressure plate, and bellhousing mounted, did the measurements recommended, and found everything was aligned within spec and didn’t need any offset dowels or other adjustments, score! Next we got the new trans up on a trans jack… and spent about an hour and a half trying to get the thing in. It ultimately went, and I was really hesitant to just crank away at it afraid I was going to break something. Turns out we just needed to go at it and ram it in. Once the dowels started on each side it shimmied in pretty easily. Got it bolted up and torqued down, got the starter back on.
After that, had to take a break and run to the hardware store for some more bolts. The kit from Grannas was great with everything needed and labelled with torque specs… but the rear driveshaft hardware was half wrong. After picking up 3 suitable bolts it went right in with no issues. Pulled the old cylinder and added the new one included with the kit, removed the old hard line as it wasn’t needed anymore and ran the new braided one. Bled it without any issues, took maybe 20 minutes.
Lastly, the trans comes with a harness and a Bluetooth module you can use to set the parameters of your car. It has speed sensor, reverse lockout, and reverse light plugs. Wired those into the stock harness and we were done! It was a super fun project, was really thankful to have my buddy there who saved me from a couple potential pitfalls that I would’ve figured out eventually and had to backtrack but overall I could’ve done it on my own (aside from maybe being too weak to push it in alone).
Can’t say enough good things about the quality of the whole kit from Grannas, if you’re on the fence about swapping your 5sp for a 6sp or doing an auto to 6sp swap just go for it. Joel’s customer service making sure you get everything you need in your kit along with all the videos on the website make it so straightforward that anyone with a decent set of tools, a way to get the car off the ground, and a trans jack can do it .
@Moe
You got lucky the bell didn’t have to be indexed. Mine did and it was a huge pain.
Kaius said:
@Moe
You got lucky the bell didn’t have to be indexed. Mine did and it was a huge pain.
Yeah I was super stoked about that.
@Moe
Awesome! I have the same transmission. The noise took some getting used to but overall I’m happy with it.
IvankaMoore said:
@Moe
Awesome! I have the same transmission. The noise took some getting used to but overall I’m happy with it.
Heh man I’m glad to hear that! When I took it for a test drive last night I was immediately worried something was terribly wrong. Came back and took my friend and he said nah, it’s a combination of the new straight cut gears and the clutch making all that racket and that it’s normal. Drove it around a good bit last night and home and didn’t have any issues so figured the noise is not abnormal.
Nice, I went CD009 from PMC, it’s great.
Teegan said:
Nice, I went CD009 from PMC, it’s great.
Nice!!
Nice, I’m planning to swap my A80 from auto to a T56 early next year.
Love this, I need this setup soon.
Nice! I’ll be doing this eventually. A340E to a GR700 kit. Should be well worth the wait.
Do you plan on keeping the old transmission? I’d be interested in purchasing if it’s in good condition.
Jonah said:
Do you plan on keeping the old transmission? I’d be interested in purchasing if it’s in good condition.
I am planning to sell it, just haven’t had the time to get it loaded up on a pallet and get pics and get it listed. It’s in great shape aside from being 30 years old haha and I’ll have the clutch, driveshaft, master cylinder and hard line. It’s a complete kit aside from the harness.