The weather was decently nice this past weekend.  Too bad I wasn’t able to cruise around some and enjoy it.  This made me want to get this project done so that I could get the bird back on the road where she belongs.  I’ve been working on this for a month now but only really being able to put in maybe 1 day a week toward actually getting anything done.  I set myself a goal of putting in time this weekend to try and wrap it up.

I started by crawling under the car and getting everything back in place.  Installed the new UMI relocation crossmember in place and bolted the torque arm up.  This was so much easier to do in with the T56.  It took maybe 15 minutes to get the hard to reach bolts in and tightened where as I fought with the auto version for hours.

Next we move inside the cabin and start on some of the wiring.  Here is the plug that used to go into the auto shifter for control.  It needs to be hacked off and everything re-wired for the new transmission.

You end up with 6 wires but only need 5 of them, although some do use all 6.  I had to add a pigtail to the light green & brown pair and run it down to the trans for the backup lights.  Then the dark green & purple/white wires got run over to the pedal assembly and connected to another pigtail for the clutch neutral safety switch.  It was hard to find confirmation of what the polarity of this should have been but I think I have it correct, time will tell.  Here is where most folks simply wire the black/white & orange/black together to ground out the hatch release switch.  However by doing this it will allow the hatch to be opened at anytime, such as when you bump it with your knee while doing 80 down the interstate.  Instead I decided to splice it into the e-brake wire so that in theory it should only allow opening when the e-brake is engaged.  The black/white is just a common ground so I tucked it under the dash.

Next I headed back under the car to finish up the wiring.  Here I had to borrow a couple wires from the 4L60E case plug for the reverse lockout solenoid.  I dug through it and found a hot wire for power and one that lead back to the PCM that the auto used for TCC control.  I spliced in the pigtail and then had to re-pin the PCM wire to another spot so that when I flash a 6 speed tune it will be able to control the solenoid.  Many people just wire it straight to the brake pedal so that it energizes whenever the brakes are applied to ensure that they are depressed before allowing you to go into the reverse gear.  I chose to try handling it the way a stock manual car would.  This way the PCM will handle the energizing of the solenoid on an as needed basis and should extend the life of the solenoid itself by not being turned on/off every time I touch the brakes.  I also needed to snip the VSS connector and extend it a little since the T56 location is a bit different than the auto.  I also discovered soldering connections while upside down was a little more challenging than sitting at a table.

Next up I hopped back in the cabin and bolted the shifter to the trans.  While normally this isn’t anything noteworthy, this case it led to a great deal of cursing.  I clean up the surfaces real good and go to put a bead of RTV around the perimeter.  I get about a third of the way around and POP, the back of the tube came unsealed and I end up with RTV all over my hand.  I say ok to myself, clean up and grab a fresh tube.  I get about three quarters of the way around and POP, this tube seal at the end comes open too spilling RTV all over the place.  And this my friends is why even through cheap RTV from HFT will make an adequate seal, it should still be avoided.  I clean all that off and find a new unopened tube of permatex black ultra in the cabinet.  Score!  Open it up and the first half of the tube is already set making the whole thing unusable.  Apparently it had a factory defect where it never completely sealed the tube with the metal covering you normally have to poke through.  So I had to head out and pick up another tube and finally got a bead on it and bolted down.

Next up was fitting the rubber dust boot in place, drilling some starter hole for the self tapping screws and getting it tightened down.  This should help the road noise from the hole I had to cut in the tunnel.

Next up was installing the shifter handle.  Here is a side by side comparison of the stock hurst and the UMI short throw.  The hurst knob absolutely refused to be taken off so much that the glue broke free and the leather covering was spinning on threaded handle.  So I couldn’t remove the boot for a clearer comparison.

And here are a couple shots to show how much of a difference it makes when they are installed.  The short throw handle also has a tilt toward the driver for a more comfortable feel.

With that done I moved on the the part I have been dreading for the entire project.  Installing the Tick adjustable master cylinder.  Here we are prepping the firewall to accept the new part.  I cut out the plastic piece where they go and holding the brace against the firewall tried to mark the best I could where the holes would need to go.  I was able to get the 1-3/4″ hole for the cylinder rod without much issue but making the bolt holes was more challenging as the drill bit kept wanting to walk around.  Unfortunately it is very cramped in that space with the pedals already installed and wasn’t much room to move around and the holes got a little messy.

The new master cylinder is huge in comparison to the stock unit and I somehow had to wedge it between the steering knuckle and brake booster.  In the end I had to remove the coil packs and manhandle a thick part of the wiring harness out of the way, but I finally got it in there.  It was a bit of a challenge to get the rod through the hole as well since there was no longer any room for my hand down there.  Some creative use of a telescoping magnet and a lot of guess work and it was done.  I then went into the cabin to quickly screw the turnbuckle back onto the rod before it decided to fall back out of the hole.  Next came the lengthy and curse filled process of trying to maneuver the MC block up against the firewall to put the bolts in.  I came to the conclusion that the Tick provided bolts simply were not long enough.  The ones that came with the cylinder were 5/16 x 1/2″ and I could not get them to thread in, no matter how hard I tried.  I did have some spare 5/16 laying around and while still having to fight a lot to get one in, I was able to get it done.  Only to find out that the longer bolts I had were a tad too long at 1-1/2″ in length.  So I had to undo all that aggravating work and remove the bolts and headed to the hardware store to pick up some more in various lengths along with some lock washers.  Having already been able to get the longer ones threaded in, it wasn’t so much of a challenge the second time and I was able to get them in and tightened using ones that were 1″ long.  If I ever, and I mean EVER have to do that again it will be too soon.

With that done, it was just a matter of putting in all the fluids, bleeding the clutch and re-installing the interior pieces.  And here we are, all buttoned up and ready to go!

So I hop in, push the clutch down and turn the key.  Nothing.  Car has power, the headlights work, ect but it won’t turn over.  At that point I was too tired to even deal with it anymore so I just went to bed.

While laying in bed trying to sleep I remembered that I had pulled the gauge pod out for a make over and in the process, removed 2 expandable circuits from the wiring thus leaving 2 fuses missing from the block.  I am hoping that is the entirety of the problem and I will be able to get it started when I get home tonight and maybe get it flashed with a 6 speed tune so everything will work properly.  Another cause might be the clutch safety switch could be wired in backwards.  So close, yet so far away.

With the thunderstorms going on making the weather all dreary I didn’t really feel like crawling around on the garage floor so I decided to take it easy.  Instead I decided to work on the wiring for the gauge pod.  It looked like a rat’s nest when I pulled it out.  And this is with only 2 of the gauges, one had already been removed so just imagine another couple feet of 5 additional wires all mixed in there.

There are a few reasons that I wanted to do a little work on this.  One is that when trying to install the thing, having 15 wires going every which way makes the job more difficult while trying not to pinch any and cause future issues.  Another is that I think some of the butt connectors that were crimped on did not establish the best of connections.  Lastly I was having issues with one gauge in particular not really working and would bounce around a lot which makes me think it is a grounding issue either in the harness or on the senders.  This next shot is one of the reasons that I wanted to get rid of crimps.  It had pulled right out of the bullet connector to the sending unit.  Had no idea until I saw it hanging under the car while removing the transmission.

So I cut all the lame crimps off.  Huzzah!

Stripped the wires down and soldered them together for a connection that will be just as strong as a single wire.

I then wanted to tame the nest a little bit and make it a little more streamlined.  So I grabbed a roll of electrical tape and started wrapping.  Here is the before and after of the main gauge harness.

And here we go with the gauges wired into the extension harness.  All connections are now soldered with heat shrink wrap around them.

I then went back to wrapping with the tape until I got to where everything joined into the main lines that need to be wired into the car harness.  I left a good bit of that unwrapped for now since they will need to go to various places under the dash.  I’ll do the final wrapping once the gauge pod is back in the car.

On a final note, I believe I have found something to fill the empty hole where the trans temp gauge was at.  I am considering putting in a vacuum gauge to monitor the draw in the intake to make sure that I am not springing any leaks.

I had the opportunity to work on the swap some more today.  The first item of the day was removing the shifter, masking off the opening to avoid debris and test fitting the T56 into the car.  Once it was in place I bolted up the crossmember so it would be in it’s approximate position once actually installed and then traced the shifter outline on the bottom of the trans tunnel.  I then pulled the trans back out, marked off some guide spots and drilled a few holes.  Then came the fun part, getting to cut up the car with a sawzall and cutoff wheel.  Once I had the opening cut out I took a file to the edges to try and remove some of the sharper bits to avoid rubbing and cutting into the lower boot.  I then gave it a quick shot with some red caliper paint to make the fresh cuts a little more rust resistant.

Next I moved on to a few items on the T56 itself.  I pulled the old slave cylinder and set it aside to deal with later.  I then bolted up the new slave and removed the stock bleeder screw and replaced it with a Tick Performance speed bleeder.

The next to do item was getting rid of CAGS.  The Computer Assisted Gear Selector (CAGS) or Skip Shift as most know it, was an idea established in attempts to make the transmission more efficient by forcing you to shift from 1st to 4th under particular sets of circumstances.  Yea, I don’t think so buddy.  I will shift into what gear I want, when I want it.  Here is the CAGS solenoid that I’ll be removing.

That sucker was so large that I didn’t have a single wrench that was large enough to fit.  Even my crescent wrench wouldn’t open that large, close but not quite.  I had to break out the adjustable plumbers pipe pliers to get it off.  Here is a side by side comparison of the solenoid and what I will be replacing it with.

I took the rubber o-ring off the solenoid and put it on the oil plug to give it a little more sealing power and installed it.  This cleaned up that side of the trans nicely.

I then slide the trans back under the car and re-installed it.  I don’t understand why folks say they have such a hard time getting this one installed.  To me it was much easier than getting the 4L60E dowel pins lined up on the block, maybe 10 minutes and I was putting the bolts in.  It is now all torqued down and I just need to swap the trans mount over from the auto and then bolt the new crossmember into place.

I also went ahead and bolted up the M6 pedals inside the cabin.  They really weren’t as much of a nightmare as I thought that they would be considering how much of a pain getting the A4 pedals out was.  Once they were all bolted up I pulled out the drill and made the bolt holes for the master cylinder but wasn’t able to cut the hole for the MC yet since I neglected to get an arbor for the hole saw I am using.  I can tell that getting this MC installed by myself is going to be a long exercise in colorful language.

Since I couldn’t do anymore with the pedals today I decided to pull the triple gauge pillar pod out.  When I originally installed it, I just used a bunch of crimped butt connectors to make all the connections.  It’s an eyesore to look at and I think might be the cause of a grounding issue for the gauges that I’ve been seeing from time to time.  I am going to solder the wires together this time and heat shrink them for nicer connections.  I still don’t know what I am going to put in the 3rd slot on the pod now that the trans temp gauge is gone.  Here is the giant rats nest of wiring that it is right now.

I’ll probably pick back up tomorrow with the MC install but if it irritates me too much I will probably move on to redoing the wiring and take it easy for the day.

So yesterday I managed to score getting off work a little early and thought that I would be able to make some progress on the swap project.  As usual, I was wrong.  Spent several hours working in the garage and hardly accomplished anything at all.

First up was getting rid of the A4 shifter assembly.  Just look at that mess.

Removing it wasn’t all that bad once I figured out how the park lock cable and shifter linkage disconnected from the assembly.  With it out of the way you can see the formed pedestal that it was bolted to.  This has to some out as well except the air bag module also uses it as a perch.  There are 6 tack welds holding it in.

So I used a cutoff wheel and sawzall to separate most of it from the part where the air bag module bolted to.  I started off drilling into the welds.  And drilled, and drilled, and drilled.  The bit I was using wasn’t really doing anything other than continuing to get more and more dull with only putting a small dimple into the sheet metal.  I pulled it and went down to a much smaller size to start a pilot and then step drill the holes up in size until the welds were gone.  Yea, that didn’t work out either since the smaller bit broke after about 3 revolutions.  I guess the HFT HSS bits just weren’t up to the task.  I broke out the Kobalt titanium bits, sprayed a little WD-40 and started punching holes in the steel.  However my titanium bits on went up to 1/4″ and that wasn’t large enough to completely separate the welds and it was still stuck good since a prybar wouldn’t budge it.  Took a trip down to Home Depot and picked up a set of cobalt bits up to 1/2″.  They chewed through that steel like it wasn’t even there.  I know what kind of bits I’m going to be using from this point on.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get rid of the large grey bit in the middle there connected to a cable.  That is the park lock cable and it connects to the steering column which I have no desire to pull out unless I absolutely have to.  It will likely get tucked up somewhere in the dash.  And here we are with the assembly mount out of the way.

Next up is the T56 bellhousing.  Got it fitted to the block and all bolted up.  It is so much easier to bolt on than the 4L60E auto was since I can actually see the bolt holes and don’t need 4-5 feet of ratchet extension to reach.

I was then going to test fit the T56 and trace out the area on the tunnel that I will need to cut out for the shifter to fit through but this is where I ran into the problems for the day.  When the transmission was brought to me, the master cylinder was still connected to the slave but didn’t think much about it since I thought maybe it was done to keep it from getting misplaced.  Oh nooooo, it was because whomever was the last person to mess with the clutch or it’s hydraulics left out a key piece of the quick disconnect fitting.  The plastic sleeve that slides into then female portion of the quick disconnect and presses the fingers down allowing the line to come apart.  I tried every A/C & fuel line quick disconnect tools I had and none would fit properly enough to get down into the fitting.  So I put the T56 on the tranny jack, chained it down and lifted it into the air a little to get a better look.  The next problem came when I went to tilt the tranny back some to get better light on the slave cylinder.  As soon as the tailshaft was at a slight downward angle about 3 quarts of tranny fuid dumped out onto the garage floor.  I don’t know about you folks, but anytime I plan to remove a trans I generally drain it first to lighten it up some and avoid extremely messy situation such as this.  So after a roll and a half of paper towels and a good bit of cursing I managed to get the spill cleaned up and got back to the situation at hand.  Since I had no tool to properly go into the fitting I had to try my hand at MacGyvering something.  Unfortunately the best I could come up with at the time some some cardboard folded and stuffed in with a small flat edge screwdriver.  Needless to say this didn’t work and I was tired of messing with it for the night.  Things were then compounded by coming in and finding my domain dead in the water.  Here is a shot of the quick disconnect where there should have been a plastic sleeve around the male portion of the fitting.

So rather than waste who knows how much more time trying to get the line separated I decided to just pick up a new slave cylinder on the way home from work tonight.  It’s a gamble getting one from the local parts places but the autozone duralast model was supposedly the same as the GM piece in some situations.  Once I got it home and opened it up, it looks like the gamble was lost and I ended up with one of the cheap china pieces that are known to be problematic.  I’m going to go ahead and throw it in for now and deal with it later if need be as it has a lifetime replacement/refund on it.  If I can ever get the other one apart I will have a spare to sit on the shelf.

Hopefully this weekend will go better and I’ll be able to get more done as I am ready to get this bird back on the road and driving.

So there was a nice little charlie foxtrot with the domain I have been using to host this blog on.  Folks have been telling me for about a week now that they were only getting a list of “Related Links” rather than being able to see the normal site, however I was able to log in, view the site and post just fine.  I thought maybe it was an issue with whatever DNS services their ISP was using at the time, until last night.  I went to post a small update about the swap project I am working on and lo & behold, the domain is expired.  This is the second year in a row this particular domain of mine has done this to me.  No e-mails, call or anything.  Just flipped the switch and turned it off.  Although I am not sure why I was able to access it for a little while when the outside world couldn’t.  So I go to Registry Rocket and try to re-new it and for whatever reason their page won’t accept any payment I tried to put through, just ambiguous error messages about not being able to pre-authorize the card.  I became fed up fighting with trying to get them to take my money and give me the domain back so I just registered a new one just for the car, updated the NS and went to bed to let it propagate.

So this morning I tested it out and still no go, couldn’t resolve.  I thought that odd since most times I have had to make NS changed it was a few hours at most before I could resolve the new address.  I didn’t think too much of it since I didn’t have time to mess around with it anyway and headed off to work.  Later in the morning I tried to hit it up and bingo, the test index I stuck in there was showing up.  Tried registry rocket again and they still didn’t want my money.  Not having time to worry about someone being reluctant to take my money I went about the work day and headed home.  Once back here I tried to access the site again and no go.  The irritation started to rise once again and I grabbed the cell and was able to resolve over that network.  So I thought about it for a second and I’ve been using OpenDNS at home for a couple years now and never had an issue with them.  So as  test I went back to the comcast DNS and bam, worked like a charm.  I don’t know why OpenDNS is taking so long to propagate.

So I sit down and after a while of playing around with the database and moving some files around I was able to get the blog itself back up.  I then found a nice little plugin that did all the hard work for me by going through the DB to find and replace all the old links with the new address while keeping the serialization.  Hopefully I won’t have to deal with that again since the new domain registration is under the same place as my hosting now and they are much better with e-mail communications.  I would still like to renew the other domain to at least setup some redirects but I am not going to put too much more effort into it.

I decided to take it easy today and just do some of the minor stuff that needed to be taken care of before the T56 gets installed.  After about 20 minutes of fighting the oil cooler lines and fill tube, I decided it wasn’t worth it to pull them out in once piece and just took the cutoff tool to them.  A mere 30 seconds later they are gone and in the trash, good riddance.

Next I removed the flexplate and set it aside with the old tranny.  At this point I figured that since I was this deep in, I might as well go ahead and change the rear main seal.  It wasn’t in terrible condition but did have a small leak at the bottom of the crank.  Afterward I installed the pilot bearing which was a bit more of a job than I expected.  Ended up having to wack on it pretty good with a washer, 1/2″ extention bar and a hammer to get it into the crank.  But once that was done, it was easy going for the clutch.  I cleaned up the flywheel with brake cleaner and bolted it in.  It was much heavier than the A4 flexplate was.  Next up was getting the friction plate in with the alignment tool and after cleaning the pressure plate contact surface with more brake cleaner it too went in.  Here is a shot of it all installed, aligned and torqued down.

I went ahead and pulled the bellhousing off the T56 but was getting a little tired at that point so I decided not to crawl under the car again for today but to do a little clean up on it instead.  Here is a before and after of the bellhousing.  It was a wee bit dusty so I attacked it with more brake cleaner and tried to get as much of the gunk off as I could.  It’s not sparkling but it does look alot better than it did before.

It will most likely be next weekend before I have time to mess around with it again but I’ll see how the work week goes and maybe can fit a couple hours here or there in.

This was the first day since I took possession of the T56 and parts a couple weeks ago that I was able to actually work on the swap.  The sun was out and it got warm enough so that it was actually a pleasant day.  I would have much preferred to have been cruising around, but one step at a time.

The mailman came by and dropped off what should be the last of the parts needed to complete the project.  As you can see my dining area is just filthy with car stuff.  In this latest batch there is the torque arm relocation crossmember and short throw shifter handle from UMI Performance. Slave cylinder speed bleeder line and adjustable master cylinder from Tick Perfomance. Clutch safety switch pigtail from Rock Auto. Reverse lockout solenoid, backup lights switch and vss pigtails from EFI Connection.  It is unlikely I will need the vss as it should use the same one as the auto but better safe than sorry.  A couple brake & clutch rod retaining clips from ebay.  And finally an M20x1.5 oil plug that is remarkably hard to get ahold of that I intend to modify and use to plug the hole left when I remove the CAGS skip shift module.

Here is a quick shot of inside the cabin without the seats.  It sure is roomy in there with them out.  I might have to invest in the milk crate mod so that I can actually stretch my legs out.

Everything went pretty smoothly pulling the trans this time around since I knew what the skinny was on the situation having upgraded the converter only 6 months ago.  The hardest part was getting the converter bolts off since I couldn’t recall how I had secured the breaker bar hanging off the crank pulley the last time so I was stretched out with one hand on the breaker bar and one hand on the wrench at the converter bolts pushing each in the opposite direction.  I’m sure it looked quite comical.

I do think though, that it might be entirely possible that I put too much loctite on the bellhousing bolts.  During the process of removing them, I got all he-man on the ratchet and exploded one of my swivel sockets.

After finally getting it all unbolted I pulled the 4L60E back out and stuck it next to the T56 for a side by side shot.

I’ve decided to take my time with this swap and not kill myself working super long hours on it so that everything gets done right the first time.  All said and done I’ve probably only got around 5 hours of time invested in it, half of which was me cursing at the bolts that did not want to break loose and having to go get a new swivel socket.

So today was a happy package day with plenty of goodies arriving by various methods.  The first and foremost was a new creeper for working under the car.  For the past 3 years I’ve been using one of the cheaper HFT ones and I finally became fed up with it.

Here is a side by side shot of the old plastic HFT creeper next to the new King Crawler.  There is a night and day difference between the two.  The only thing I am likely to miss about the old one is the fact it has some tool/parts holders built in, but I doubt it’s going to bug me too much.  I’ll probably switch to just sticking my magnetic parts bowl to the underside of the car and using it to hold things for me.  As you can see the King Crawler has much larger wheels which is going to make the actual rolling around easier.  Additionally, the entire thing is cushioned and has a nice feel to it when laying down.

If you look closely at the previous shot it clearly states that the HFT creeper is supposed to hold 300lbs.  That’s just a flat out lie.  From the first day I brought it home, the bottom scrapped along the ground as you can see here.  The only way I see it not scrapping is if used by someone the size of a 12 year old boy.

And here you can see one of the several places the body is just cracking and beginning to break apart.

All in all I think I will be pleased with the new creeper.  It has a metal frame, larger wheels, completely cushioned and still remains just an inch off the floor providing the maximum area for working on the underside of the car without sticking it three feet in the air.

The other goodies that arrived today are for the upcoming T-56 6-speed swap that I am about to dive into if I can ever get some time to work on it.  There are ARP bolts for the flywheel & pressure plate, clutch line quick disconnect tool, slave cylinder shims, clutch alignment tool and pilot bearing from Tick Performance.  A lower rubber shift boot from Hawks Third Gen.  And finally a new upper leather shift boot to match the old one I had on the A4 along with a metal retaining ring from the fine folks over at Redline Leather Goods.

Now I just need to wait for the new crossmember, a few pigtail connectors and the master cylinder then I should be good to go.

So it has been right at 7 months since I upgraded the torque converter in the transmission and I have decided that it just isn’t for me.  Don’t get me wrong here, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a high stalled auto and they are the go to solutions if you want to run consistent times at the track.  However, mine is mostly a street car that has yet to see a track and will likely only see it once in a blue moon later on.  With it being a daily driven car I am spending a large amount of my commute times in stop & go traffic and this is where some of the problem comes from.  When running something like a 4K converter it is staying at higher RPMs for longer periods of time when unlocked and putting my mpg in the crapper.  I’ve lost somewhere on an average of 3-4 MPG since the upgrade.  Another deciding factor of this new project is that I simply miss driving a manual transmission.  Additionally it seems all the more appropriate to have a stick shift in a car of this nature.  I am sure that this is going to increase my driving enjoyment by tenfold.

I managed to get in touch with one of the local car guys in the area who offered me the perfect solution.  He is converting his M6 to an A4 and offered to sell me his transmission setup and swap some parts making this a one stop shopping trip.  The setup was pulled out of his car this week and we got together this afternoon to swap everything out.  Here is a quick shot of what I took possession of today.  Tremec T-56 6 speed transmission, RAM 88931HDX clutch with low miles, flywheel and set of M6 pedals.  He will be swinging back buy tomorrow to hand over the center console piece and shift lever.  In exchange I cannibalized part of my existing A4 setup to get him some useful pieces for his new auto configuration like the hayden fluid cooler, glowshift trans temp gauge & sending unit, A4 pedals and center console piece.

All I have to do now is wait for some other pieces on order to come in and I can begin the actual swap.  Unfortunately some of those parts won’t even ship for at least another week.  Having to walk past the new trans just sitting there doing nothing for the next couple weeks is going to be killer.

The 6LE Carbon Fiber sail panel that I ordered 4 and a half months ago was finally dropped off by UPS today.  I have always planned to put on of these on the car before I was done but 6LE jumped on the forums this summer going on about how they were shuttering the business because it was too time consuming to keep up with along side their actual jobs ect.  So I quickly jumped on the bandwagon and placed an order to be one of the limited 10 slots that were going to be done before shutting down.  Then it expanded up to 25 orders.  And as of right now the website is still live and taking orders.  So as it appears, the naysayers on the forum decrying this as a money grab tactic were right and I ended up dropping a lot of money unnecessarily early for the piece.  On the upside however I did get mine for a good deal cheaper than it is currently selling for as the price was raised by almost 67% since I placed my order back in July.  Even the shipping costs were jacked up by over 11%.  So I could really sell it for a 200-300 profit if I wanted but would rather have it on the car as it is one sexy looking piece.  Without further adieu, here is a quick shot of one section I unwrapped to take a quick gander at.