Club 80-90 Forums

Has anyone done a manual to auto swap (not the other way around)?

Apart from the obvious parts (gearbox, driveshafts, shift linkage, shifter etc) what else will be needed engine wise?

oil cooler and coolant hoses for it

Can you just fit an air to oil cooled to the gearbox instead of water to oil?

Zebedee wrote:Can you just fit an air to oil cooled to the gearbox instead of water to oil?

The auto transmission has a cooling system of it's own which is plumbed into different hoses from the manual cooling system which doesn't touch the gearbox. This heat exchanger can fail on autos sending ATF through the cooling system and wrecking the rubber hoses an seals.

Ian

throttle cable , throttle linkage - box to engine as the cable goes to the box and the box has a rod to the engine
the cooleant hoses just 'T' into the heater and bottom hose or sometimes the coolant junction / bleed valve depeding on type of cooling system fitted so not a big job to modify

starter motor ,
torque converter
drive plate
crank bolts
heater cowl
gearbox mount
baically if you got a donor van it will be simple but if your buying parts there will always be a few bits missing , and probably the job will be bodged and not last!

I've already got my LPG vaporisor lines T'd into the heater circuit.

Appears new water to oil coolers are obsolete from VW, so where else can you get them from? Seems daft to fit an unknown quantity old part thats prone to fail anyway.

Whats the difference between the autoboxes fitted to Aircooled vans and the ones fitted to watercooled ones?

Is it just that Aircooled vans (plus bays, type 3 and 4 etc) didn't have oil coolers fitted?

the box is different ,

visually different so the insides must differ to account for the different castings
so its not just the cooler ,


i am sure just like the Aircooled manual boxes the Aircooled auto boxes are left over bay window bits.

what difference if any this make to fitting / usage i would not know

I mentioned this to steve shaw a while back.When he was fitting the ATF cooler i had bought.That does away with the VW one.Because i was paranoid of this happening to me.And he says he has never seen or heard of this happening to anyone.

This heat exchanger can fail on autos sending ATF through the cooling system and wrecking the rubber hoses an seals

R0B wrote: he says he has never seen or heard of this happening to anyone.

It had happened to the person I bought the s/h DJ off, all the coolant system was milky and every hose it had touched was shagged. The engine didn't lose/use any engine oil when installed and it came off an automatique so .....


Ian

Come to think of it.It might of been you who started my paranoia off.With that story.In the first place Ian. I remember someone telling me they had seen this happen.

Tidy oilcooler ROB.

I've seen a few other autos with air to oil coolers.




Not sure where the best place to fit one would be though.