so.. manual to auto conversion?

[providence]

i have a body damaged donor 325i to convert my 325i/a to manual. the donor is a solid daily driver. for the sake of keeping the donor as a running vehicle, how difficult is it to put the auto transmission back into the donor car? worth the trouble?

[mkcman17]

If the manual car is a good car I wouldn't tear it apart. You will lose more in resale than the cost of a secondhand manual swap, labor aside.

[Andy.B]

Wiring wise, it will be tricky to retrofit an automatic to a manual car. The DME and cruise control use signals provided by an additional relay from the gear selector assembly that is not present on a manual.

Please, please, please keep it manual. The automatic transmission technology from the 80s is terrible. The e30 is no exception.

[nando]

Wiring wise, it will be tricky to retrofit an automatic to a manual car. The DME and cruise control use signals provided by an additional relay from the gear selector assembly that is not present on a manual.

Please, please, please keep it manual. The automatic transmission technology from the 80s is terrible. The e30 is no exception.

the wiring is the same. there's just an additional harness that you have to plug in. remove it from the auto car and move it over to the new/old car. you want to remove the extra harness when you do the swap anyway.

[Andy.B]

That extra wiring is contained in a harness, true. But it runs underneath the carpet and behind the dashboard. Not exactly a trivial thing to install.

And while it may not be true of every e30, the wiring in my 87 manual and 87 auto (that I converted to manual) are quite different, beyond just the gear selector harness.

(Dme-cluster speed signal wiring, for example)

[nando]

I've studied the ETMs intensely. There's really no difference other than that part of the harness as far as what matters to the cruise control and starter. the auto cars even have the wiring already there for the clutch switch..

[AwakenNoMore]

how extensive is said body damage?

[Andy.B]

I've studied the ETMs intensely. There's really no difference other than that part of the harness as far as what matters to the cruise control and starter. the auto cars even have the wiring already there for the clutch switch..

I've spent some time reading etm's as well. They aren't always correct. I've seen plenty of mistakes in service manuals in my lifetime (BMW, and otherwise).

And while I'm not disagreeing that technically, it is trivial to change the harness configuration, practically, it is rather involved, due to the routing of said harness.

Having just finished an auto to manual swap, I am quite confident that it would be much more difficult to go back.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Just swap yours to manual and let someone buy a parts car and figure it out themselves.

[cunninglinguist]

Learn how to drive manual </thread>

[ArtClassShank]

Learn how to drive manual </thread>

Read dude.