turbo90gp Posted May 18, 2004 Report Share Posted May 18, 2004 Well, drove 5 hours to PA on friday to swap out the auto for the 5 speed. Everything was goin ok, till low and behold, the J/Y didn't give us the fly wheel. No big deal, right? Well it took us over an hour to find one after one j/y would not pull the tranny for just a fly wheel, and it took the other guy 30 mins to find 1. Then, the mechanic shows up 3 hours late on saturday to start working on the swap. Everything is going good untill about 9 pm (JUST as everything closes) that we realize the J/y did not give us the half shaft for the passenger side. So the mech decides enough is enough at about 11 PM and calls it quits so he can wake up early sunday morning, make some calls, and work on my car so I can leave early sunday afternoon to be home sunday night. WELL, we show up at the mech's place at 11 am on sunday to find out he has been gone since 11 pm the night before when he was just supposed to go to sheetz. The whole day goes by, Josh (Skalor) shows up to see how things are going and what not, and takes us for a ride in the 5 speed TGP He has. Helps us out with a few things, leaves, mechanic STILL is not there! Figure out that the J/y also did not give us the transmission mount bracket and that they hacked the shit out of the slave cylinder line. Call it quits at about 7 PM, (Did all jon and I could do), go home. Monday, go to hte mechanics house, pick up the pass side axle and slave cylinder (to get an o-ring for), Mechanic is STILL not there. Talk to the guys dad, they called the state police and stuff and they will call when they find him. We go looking for the axle, to only find out that the cavalier manual is different from the 88-90 gp and cutlass manual axles. SO we go to probabally 10 deff autoparts stores, 3 diff j/y's, even the GM dealer and cant find an axle that we can use on monday. We give up, go home, call the autoparts dealer, to only find out we have to be in the store to order it. Put some stuff back together, go order it, buy greyhound tickets for harrisburgh, PA to cleveland, ohio, hop on the bus at 10 pm and I got back home at 5 am. Came home, went to sleep, and just woke up. So, the kid still is not there, and my cars up on jackstands 5 hrs away from me, waitin on this kid and an axle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGPilot Posted May 18, 2004 Report Share Posted May 18, 2004 Sounds like a wasted weekend to me. I am curious to know why anyone would think a J-Body car half-shaft would work on a W-body car to begin with. Plus I don't think it is possible to do a 5-speed swap in a weekend unless you have done it 4 or 5 times before. Lots of work, planning and fabrication needed... 8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbo90gp Posted May 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2004 We were just thinking "5 speed gm" at the time....We had 4 of us doing the swap, thats y we thought it would take a weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TurboSedan Posted May 18, 2004 Report Share Posted May 18, 2004 Figure out that the J/y also did not give us the transmission mount bracket hmmm...mine didn't use a bracket. the mount bolted straight to the trans, and the studs in the mount simply went into the subframe. i have an extra W-body 282 mount you can have for the cost of shipping if you want it. it's used but in good condition. We go looking for the axle, to only find out that the cavalier manual is different from the 88-90 gp and cutlass manual axles. dang, sounds like you might be on your own considering you are using a J-body transmission. you might need a W-body intermediate shaft if the J-body intermediate shaft is a different length. good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbo90gp Posted May 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2004 No the tranny is out of an 89 gp. Just like I said "Gm 5-speed" is all we were thinking at the time..... We got the bracket now, thanks for the offer thou. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slick Posted May 18, 2004 Report Share Posted May 18, 2004 Figure out that the J/y also did not give us the transmission mount bracket hmmm...mine didn't use a bracket. the mount bolted straight to the trans, and the studs in the mount simply went into the subframe. i have an extra W-body 282 mount you can have for the cost of shipping if you want it. it's used but in good condition. We go looking for the axle, to only find out that the cavalier manual is different from the 88-90 gp and cutlass manual axles. dang, sounds like you might be on your own considering you are using a J-body transmission. you might need a W-body intermediate shaft if the J-body intermediate shaft is a different length. good luck I would think that it would be shorter... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skalor Posted May 18, 2004 Report Share Posted May 18, 2004 I stopped on Sunday to give the guys a hand and see how everything was going. It was not going good at all when I got there. They had the tranny on, the shifter in, the shifter cables run, clutch pedal was mounted, and the clutch master was mounted too. They didn't have a passenger side axle since the one they got from the yard was missing the part that mates to the tranny. We thought that if we got one from a J-body that it might be able to use the one part and then use the rest of the W-body axle. A W-body axle would have taken until tues. and we were just looking for something to try. The slave to master cylinder hydralic line was cut by the yard and so we were also looking to see if the J-body line was usuable. Also the tranny mount wasn't there as well that needed to be ordered as well. I actually just went down for about 5 hrs or so on sunday. We put the subframe back in and bolted the steering rack back and we did some other odds and ends. I took them for a ride in my getrag 284 TGP, when we ran to get something to eat, and to the parts store. I realized when all four of us were in the my car that I needed new struts a lot more than I thought! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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