Ok this post is for anyone who has ever thought about, or might be thinking about swapping their automatic for a manual tranny. I have a 99 Dakota r/t, which obviously has an automatic. At just under 80,000 it decided to give out on me. I dont like automatics anyways, but i really didnt feel like i had the money to do a swap, so i checked on prices for a rebuilt tranny, or rebuilding mine. All local places wanted $1100 to $1500 for either one!!! So i checked around on pricing for some manual trannies. I figured everything in, and i could come out a couple hundred cheaper if i went with a 5-speed. But i ran into the problem of no one being able to thoroughly explain, or know what exactly i would need, have to do, parts, prices, cut corners, not really a whole lot of info. Cause i found that no one posting this particular subject has actually done this. But i believe i have everything figured out.......i hope, im waiting on two things at the moment, a shifter, and my drive shaft, when i get those and i get a chance to test everything out and goes well, i will post everything and answer any question anyone might have. i should know something within a couple of days. Wish me luck!!!

 

That is awesome man. I have always wanted an r/t but that automatic tranny has always just kept me away. I've wondered how hard it would be to swap in a manual and I think it is awesome you're doing the swap. Take a ton of pics and write up a nice little piece on it, that would be awesome.

Post up some pics of your r/t as well. Welcome to the forum.

What is the 5 speed out of? A dakota as well?

 

Yea, the new tranny is out of a 99 dakota 2wd w/ a 5.2 Which means of course it s the NV3500. And regretful to say i didnt take any pics of the actual swap cause i lost my camera but is all good, i will go into complete detail, once i know everything is right. And take some pics post swap. I dont want to give out info that might turn out to be false. But if i had all the parts i needed, this swap wouldve only taken me a weekend!!!! But like i said, im waiting on a shifter and driveshaft......oh the suspense!

 

For any of you 2nd gen guys that may be interested, I did a write up over in 1st gen several months ago about this topic...

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...-5-2l-4x4.html

 

you swapped out for a manual ECU, correct?

 

Sorry, got a little busy yesterday wasn't able to get on here! But to answer that, no actually i kept my same engine comp that the truck came out with. That was one of the cut corners and money savers. Cause even though its for an auto, it wont affect the performance of engine, because basically its sending a signal sayin when to shift, or when not to, but theres nothing there so really no harm done.......other than possibly a few lights.......and the trick of getting the park/neutral switch to let me start the truck, even though there is no park!

 

Ground the signal wire to the P/N switch. It's the middle of the 3 wires in the harness. The other 2 are for the reverse lights.

 

oh, i figured that one out. I thought at first when i started doing the swap it might gimme some trouble, but no probs.

 

No, it might not work well. It will be expecting input from various sensors and might go into limp mode if it doesn't get it.

But it could work, too. It varies depending on the vehicle and I certainly haven't looked into it much on these.

 

Your r/t looks sweet from your sig pic you should post up some more pics of it too.