I'm putting a manual transmission into my C70

[LloydDobler]

Alright, I asked about doing this earlier in the year and researched it off and on until I decided to do it. I had the parts car lined up but I'm really not using much off of it.

Also I'm learning as I go.

You guys have seen it before many times but here again is the victim in question:

We're starting with my '04 HPT which complicates things because in these later cars, the ECU is tied to other electronics in the car so I can't just swap it out with a manual ECU. So I'm using IPD's softloader to reflash the existing ECU to stick, and I've already bought and paid for that modification. It took a few emails back and forth to confirm it could be done, and they assure me it's all good. I have the files now, it took them a week, and it's ready to be loaded in the car. I'm going to swap the hardware first. I also bought the stage 1 power upgrade and their data logging/diagnostic package.

I bought the transmission out of a 2002 with 50k miles, so I paid a bit of a premium for it, $1300 shipped. But I got literally everything with it. Full pedal box, master cylinder, clutch, flywheel, starter, crank sensor, literally everything I might need. Turns out I'm going to use hardly any of it.

This includes the stock dual mass flywheel which everyone says is a nightmare to install, as you need a special tool to preload the pressure plate during assembly, and after that it's not really great for power upgrades.

So I did a bunch of research on the internet concluded I needed the 850R single mass flywheel (p/n 9454774) and clutch kit (p/n 272218) . These parts are available for not terrible prices brand new from Volvo. I ordered from Tasca Volvo and paid $183 for the clutch kit and $236 for the flywheel. Other places have them priced at double that. Rumors around the net say this clutch is good and reliable for over 400 HP. I'll never go over that so I'm satisfied.

I also bought new seals for most of the areas I'll be digging into, and new clutch slave and master cylinders, just because they do go out sooner than most other parts, so why trust a used one?

I was also able to get brand new pedal pads. Gonna look nice.

With that, I started work.

[LloydDobler]

First I received IPD's polyurethane torque restraints, as my stock upper was completely shot.

Mmm... pretty...

Gotta love Volvo's 90 degree hood action.

Here's the one that's clearly bad, the car has been bucking on downshifts and when I would lift off the throttle.

Ugh, gotta clean this engine. The flash makes it look even worse:

Out of the car, definitely bad.

The cool part is that the outer ring is plastic so it presses in nice and hard, but a hacksaw relieves the press fit in about 4 strokes.

Bam. Reassembled.

Now for the bottom one. (Yes I had jack stands under there too):

This one comes out of the car super quick:

Not as easy to get out, especially when it wasn't in terrible condition. I had to jam the hacksaw through the small side clearance, but it did eventually break loose. I was using sockets for press fixtures. Hey, whatever works.

New bushing installed:

Installed in car:

First impressions: WOW. It makes the car shift super, super smooth now. I can jam my foot on and off the throttle and not even feel it. On the other hand, it has HORRIBLE engine vibes through the car at idle. Fortunately for me it's only doing that when it's in gear, not in neutral, so when it's a stick it won't be a problem at all. I should be very smoothly putting all the new power down to the ground. But I will say, if this was staying automatic I'd probably return the upper bushing and get 2 or 3 stock ones and just swap them out as they failed. It'd be way too much vibe to live with on a day to day basis. On the third hand, it's starting to feel like I have a performance modded car now!

I'm a little suspicious of my other motor mounts, as the upper torque restraint was very heavily preloaded when I reassembled everything. I had to use a pry bar to tilt the motor forward just to get the bolt in. If I find my other mounts are bad once I tear into it, I'll replace those too and it'll probably ease up the vibration issues.

[LloydDobler]

Next, I pulled my front wheel off to get it re-powder coated, about a month ago I took a rock and a big hunk of paint came off. I was just sitting there and some SUV kicked a 4" round river rock sideways right into my car.

So for laughs I put two of my Tritons on this car that are normally on my 960 but have been pulled in exchange for snows on the factory 16"s. I think the color is all wrong. Too close to the body color yet not a good match. Maybe if the rims were polished and the centers were a nice graphite gray...

Anyway, it's fun to look at but I think I'll be keeping the pegs on it.

I pulled this mud flap too, to get repainted under the body shop's lifetime warranty. It looks like they didn't prep it at all before painting. Someone got lazy. Fortunately it peeled right away and this is the only one that did. To me those are both signs that the rest aren't going to peel.

After those minor items I moved on to the important stuff. I figure I'll start with the pedal box. It's not a box so much as it is a pair of brackets with a rod between them.

Oh look, it's the same brackets that are already in the car! (I know it's hard to see but trust me). It's even the same shaft with the collars welded on and everything.

So all that's needed is to remove the pivot bolt. Why lookee there, someone was kind enough to leave a hole in the middle of all those wires and relays that happens to be long enough to allow a 7 inch long bolt to slide out from the pedal pivot.

Old next to new. Again, this is all I'm changing.

Haha the car thinks the brakes are on! Stupid car.

And bam. All told that took me less than an hour. And I actually thought I might have to remove the dash to do that.

Forgot, there's a little over-center spring that snaps the pedal either up or down. I guess it assists with pedal force when it's down.

Installed:

Then I opened up the clutch master cylinder hole.

Master cylinder. Note the tilted flange, this actually goes in below the power brake booster and points down. Which makes it a nightmare to install. The cool part though is that the brake reservoir (where it gets its common fluid) is the same on either manual or auto. Therefore, my existing fluid reservoir has the same fitting on it that the one from the donor car had, so once I bleed it and get everything working, I just snip the tip of the tube and jam this hose onto it, theoretically leaking almost no brake fluid onto the depths of my engine.

And after an hour of cursing and nothing to photograph but a mess of crap in the way, it's in. It was really difficult, there was only one way in, through the left front suspension. In hindsight it would have been super easy once the subframe and transmission were dropped out of the car, but meh, hindsight. I was into it.

I ought to pass this pic around and confuse people with my third auto pedal. "It's an automanual. Kind of like the opposite of a manumatic. Instead of pushing the shifter back and forth, I just push the clutch in and the transmission shifts up or down." The funny part is that I haven't disabled the car yet, I can still drive it around like this. I guess I have two dead pedals.

I seriously jacked up my shoulder doing that. I didn't notice until after I took a shower and tried to put a shirt on. Ow. I felt it all day today.

This is where I am right now, I'll be updating with my progress.

[Chilled Man]

Everything is awsome minus ditching the dualmass you could of gotten a S/V70R dual mass and been done

Thats what I am doing since the T5 clutch I have my wagon now is slipping after less then 10k . Guess its the 19t and all

Any questions just ask I have done two of these so far this year.

And nice thing my coupe came manual lol

[LloydDobler]

Thanks, I will. Actually, do you pull the whole motor out as a package? I'm planning to hang the motor on a bar across the strut mounts or something like that and just drop the subframe, leaving the engine in the car. And the only reason I'm doing that is so I don't have to recharge my a/c.

Also, do you have the part yet or are you shopping? I'll sell you my dual mass flywheel cheap. I bet it's the same one, as the HPT C70's have similar power ratings as the older S/V70 R's. It's part number 9480480 - if that's what you need let me know. Although I bet you already have it.

[C70drvr]

Good write-up.
I think I'm going to order a new lower engine mount now.

[LloydDobler]

Another update, I thought I might swap the stick out tonight. Decided not to simply because once I do that I pretty much lose the ability to move the car except for pushing it. I haven't decided whether or not to park it in the middle and hog up my garage, leaving the 960 outside as the weather turns to crap, or try to figure out a way to do this swap with room for both cars inside. I'm thinking the former, but that means I don't want to commit to it tonight.

That said, I didn't do much but I feel really productive. Started by removing the console.

Two screws back here...

Two more up here...

Pop this thing out... crap, broke it. Ah well, it looks like it'll stay in place upon reassembly.

Pop this thing out...

Well, hrm. I probably didn't have to pop that thing out after all. I just couldn't tell at the time where the wires went, they went to those two large plugs in the middle.

Again, these parts are universal between auto and stick. I just gotta remove those 4 bolts and the shifter comes right out.

Now into the steering column. The little gray cable keeps the key from coming out unless the car is in park. Well, the car will have no park after this so that's gotta go.

That was almost too easy. I'll probably try to remove the cable completely but for now I'll just let it dangle. And yes, I tested, the key now works in all positions without this cable in place.

Shifter assembly. Again, my dad sent me that other plastic bracket but it's identical to what's already in the car, so I don't need it. Now where is that firewall pass-through for those cables, oh god please tell me it's not under the center of the tunnel...

Oh man, that's convenient. I was really worried for a second there.

MMMRRRRRRRR! MRRRRRR! MRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Okay let's try to clean these up, lookin kind of nasty.

Meh, not much better. Apparently this gray vinyl turns brown over time, because both my e-brake boot and auto shift boot are the same way. Ugly.

I'm gonna go price these online, or maybe try to find the factory wood trimmed shifter knob or a classy aftermarket one. I checked, I can't use the automatic knob, it has a square shaft instead of this round one. I wouldn't want to anyway, it has the button in the front and is weighted totally differently than this.

Edit: Ouch: $56 for the boot cover, and $68 for the knob. Hey, they want $176 for the one I have now, maybe I can make a trade.

I might just use these as is, they don't look much different than what's in the car now. Anyway, this pretty much concludes the easy part of the job, next post will be tearing down the engine bay to get to that pesky transmission. Like I said, I just have to decide where to put the car because once it's there, that's where it's staying for the next week or two until I finish.

[MKC70]

Nice write up so far, seem to be pretty organized. Those upper and lower mounts looked bad like mine. I also changed my firewall mount at the same time. The rubber was shot in it as well.

[Token]

I have no idea how to do what you've been doing, but it looks very impressive

Although I can't help thinking.... wouldn't it just be so much easier to sell your car and buy a manual version?

[C70drvr]

I remember hearing at a local dealership that they were having trouble moving the 2004 HPT verts because so many were manual, but prospective buyers wanted automatics.

[LloydDobler]

Quote, originally posted by Token »

Although I can't help thinking.... wouldn't it just be so much easier to sell your car and buy a manual version?

Nope. there are virtually no manuals in the states. When my dad picked up the wrecked one over a year ago I told him to reserve the transmission for me, for this reason.

In the 6 months I spent looking for C70s I saw 1 manual and it was beat up with high miles.

[flat_six]

For the upper mount, there is what appears to be a Volvo improved design. See:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...A1318

Anyone have any experience with this mount relative to vib isolation and life? A part number would be nice.

[BenES]

Great job you're doing!

And... I do like the Triton's a lot more on your C70 but I'm biased

[phuz]

I don't get over to this forum much, but I enjoy watching skilled customizations like this.

Great job so far!

[raffiC70]

Keep up the good work....that's awesome.

I love the Tritons as well, much nicer.

[Chilled Man]

Quote, originally posted by LloydDobler »

Thanks, I will. Actually, do you pull the whole motor out as a package? I'm planning to hang the motor on a bar across the strut mounts or something like that and just drop the subframe, leaving the engine in the car. And the only reason I'm doing that is so I don't have to recharge my a/c. Also, do you have the part yet or are you shopping? I'll sell you my dual mass flywheel cheap. I bet it's the same one, as the HPT C70's have similar power ratings as the older S/V70 R's. It's part number 9480480 - if that's what you need let me know. Although I bet you already have it.

I pulled the motor when I did the swap in my R wagon just since when doing it in AWD car you have to replace steering wrack and a few other things that dont in a FWD car.

Hey I will take another Dual Mass wheel spare parts

I can get the S60R clutch for $200 shipped from dealer in Tenn , where I get all my parts from

[Chilled Man]

Also intrested in your wood shift knob.

And I am getting quotes from a local leather shop to redo my shift boot and ebrake boot .

Think both are $60ish total . I am going with Suede or leather with a blue stitch for the wagon and then leather with purple stich for the coupe.

if yoru intrested let me know

And the dual mass wheel is easy to install just eye it up and go dont need the sillly volvo spline tool

Also a S60R knob from 04 looks pretty good

[LloydDobler]

I got laid off last week, so I've had plenty of time to attack this for just a few hours a day now.

Last Tuesday I pulled the airbox and battery, and all their mounting hardware, as well as my upper intercooler pipe. The air mass meter is jammed into the turbo inlet hose pretty good, and there's a bunch of wires and hoses that attach to that, and I can't really see back there to see how it's all hooked up, so I'm just leaving it there for now. But there are a few wires on the main harness that go over the top of the transmission that are still connected back there, and they're very hard to access. I got this far and was interrupted by a phone call and lunch.

I need to figure out if the transmission has to come back off the torque converter or if there's a typical access plate that will allow me to drop it straight down. It definitely won't come off sideways with the engine in the stock location:

I also cracked the axle bolts loose while the car is on the ground, thinking they were some of the 200 ft-lb mofos that some FWD cars have. They aren't. But one of them appears to be filled with CV joint grease. Not that I'm using these halfshafts anyway, but it was kind of unnerving, as I thought that bolt is supposed to be dry and have loctite on it. Turns out, the hole goes all the way through to the inside of the joint.

Got it up on jackstands Wednesday, but on the subframe. I had to figure out where else to put the stands, and I removed the air guide under the bumper which exposed the two front frame horns where the bumper mounts. So the car should hold up ok up there, with maybe two more under the body behind the motor for safety.

I started tearing everything down, and what's funny is that I just laid under the car for the longest time, just looking at stuff. I'm certainly not in a hurry to finish this thing, so I'm kind of savoring every bolt and nut.

I got the suspension torn down enough to get the halfshafts out and am prepped to drop the subframe. The control arms will stay on it when I drop it. This stuff really comes apart quick and easy:

This halfshaft came out easy, it's only held in by the bearing that's right inboard of the inner CV joint. As far as the end bolts go, they don't have gargantuan torque on them and the spline slid right out. The other halfshaft has some sort of snap ring that holds it in the transmission, and I can't for the life of me get it out. It doesn't have to come out, it will just make the drop a little more awkward.

Here's the hole it came out of, there's really lots of clearance back here once you remove a couple of things. The level of rust on the back of the engine bothers me though. I'm not sure what's up with that, there isn't rust anywhere else. It's like a battery exploded under there or something. But even the aluminum block and the galvanized coolant and oil tubes for the turbo are corroded a bit.

After that I just laid under there loosening bolts and removing little pieces. There's a torque bump stop bolted to the transmission that is like a motor mount but has a half inch of clearance, so that came out. And I pulled my new lower transmission torque restraint. I also drained the transmission fluid, although I expect the torque converter will still be full.

I think I'm going to actually be able to leave the steering rack in the car, it all unbolts from the subframe from the bottom.

Friday I built my engine hanger. It feels pretty darn solid to me, I hope you guys don't make fun of me for it. Basically I'm going to jack up the engine and then hook the chains on, then when I drop the subframe the engine will just hang there. It should work fine. From what I understand, the Volvo shops do it this way only they have an official engine hanger Volvo special tool number blah blah blah.

Next I did a half-baked homebrew short shifter. Most short shift kits lengthen the bottom half of the shift lever, but there's zero room to do that on this setup. So I figured six of one, half dozen of the other, and shortened the top rod an inch. It was a piece of cake.

Here's the stock shifter rod. The keyway keeps the knob from twisting and the groove holds the shifter down.

This collar snaps into the groove.

Like this:

Then the shifter snaps on to it, and the collar inside the shift boot snaps on to this, holding the fingers in so that it can't be removed unless you follow the order of assembly.

A little precision dremel work to lengthen the keyway an inch:

A little precision hacksaw work to shorten the shaft an inch:

Precision groove dremeling:

Presto. Short shifter. Test fit:

Now for installation! I did this today. I had my usual helper for this part (my 6 year old girl), I figured it was relatively clean and easy. She actually told me to wait so she could help me do something on the car last week. *sniff* She's helped on my last 3 projects.

Out with the old, in with the new!

Helper jamming the assembly in. Right after I snapped this I noticed the flange hanging up on the gas pedal. Heh. Push harder, kid!

Bam. Installed. Really a piece of cake.

And after final assembly. Nice stubby shifter. It feels pretty right, if it sucks I can actually just pin the sawed-off end of the shaft back on and move the little collar up to the original slot. Or, worst case, buy the shifter rod and swap it. It's easy to get to.

I discovered after I assembled everything that I ran the cables on the wrong side of the steering column in the engine bay, so I have to drop the steering rack after all, just far enough to flip the cables on to the other side. That I think will suck less than removing the entire console and shifter assembly, but even then it wouldn't be hard to do.

I'm ready to drop the subframe and auto trans tomorrow.

[C70drvr]

Welcome to the stick shift C70 club friend!
Again, great write up.

[LloydDobler]

I will go less verbose today. I put in a solid 6 hours and am pretty happy with the result. I spent about 2 hours and got the subframe ready to pull, then pulled it with the classic "balance it on two jacks" method. Worked pretty good.

There was only one hose tangled in the subframe. Luckily it had a joint I could disassemble.

Subframe out! It's not even that heavy. You might think this would be a great time to change my lower control arms, as they are very accessable and I need an alignment anyway after this level of suspension disassembly. But they don't appear to be particularly near worn out, they're pretty easy to change at any time, and my budget on this is already out of control.

This is how the engine dangles. I trust my rig so far but I'm not crawling under there unless I absolutely have to.

Dropped the transmission end of the engine.

Definitely low enough. The only worry I have is that my a/c pulley is pushing pretty hard against the other frame rail.

We have clearance, Clarence.

Oh crap, the torque converter was totally full and I missed it with my pan.

The two jack shuffle yet again. The transmission kept slipping and every time, I thought it was going to fall over, but it never did. It just kept finding a flat spot on the jack. I lowered it all the way down without a problem. It ended up being tough but not horrible to do by myself. I was gonna have my best friend help me but the poor guy was up at 2:45 for work this morning, and stopped by my place at around 4:30 on his way home.

And out. The manual trans is significantly smaller, and should be a lot easier to wrangle into place. I pity the fool who tries to do the opposite swap.

Empty hole in my engine bay.

I then ran out and bought a bag of that oil soak kitty litter stuff, and that's where I left it for the evening. Even though it was only about 6 hours, I am very tired. I would have gotten more done but I kept getting interrupted all day.

[Chilled Man]

cool nice job but man its easier to take out the top lol

[LloydDobler]

Yeah basically the only reason I did it this way was to save $150 or so on recharging my A/C. I didn't have to drain any fluids at all except for the trans fluid.

Yesterday I removed the rest of the automatic parts and left it at that. Holy crap that ultra-sorb kitty litter stuff works great! That one spot under the engine is only there because I missed it. All I did was spread and sweep.

Swept that up and crawled under. Since there's no removable flexplate cover, here's the access hole. You can also see more of the rust I was talking about earlier.

Very glad I invested in a good comprehensive torx drive socket set. 6 torx drive screws later:

What's up with the oddball drive screws, Volvo? 12 point bolts. Fortunately a standard 12 pt socket works on them. Unlike the internal 12 point which instead of being 2 hexagons rotated 90° from each other, it's 3 squares rotated 30° from each other. I did have to buy a special driver for the flywheel bolts.

The flex plate was pressed on to this hub, took a while with a screwdriver to get it unstuck. The OD where the seal goes is quite rusty, I'm wondering if the front of this car was under water at one point. I did buy it out of Houston, so it might just be that it was out by the ocean a lot. Nevertheless, that is going to have to be cleaned up a bit before I try to slide the new seal in there.

Back o' the motor:

I found my missing bracket at the local pick 'n pull. $2.16 with tax. They actually had two 850 stick shift cars, one with the transmission still in it.

Here's where it goes:

Then just because I was there, I slapped the new clutch slave cylinder on.

One of the nice parts about the pick 'n pull having two stick shift cars was that I was able to see a few things I hadn't seen before, like exactly how the hydraulic line is routed. It actually goes up along the framerail, through the air box mounting bracket. So I'll have to re-install that before I run the clutch line. But I think the most amazing thing I learned is that this is pretty much the exact same car under the skin as the 850 that they have been making since 1993. With the center console removed, I could see that all the hardware was similar if not exactly the same as what's on my 2004. I've always liked that about Volvo, it makes upgrading the little improvements on an older car easy, and it makes finding cheap used parts for a newer car possible.

That was Yesterday, then today I had a busy morning so I didn't get to start working on the car until about 4:00. Even then I had to run to the store twice. The second time was for a torque wrench, I finally broke down and bought one. The one I borrowed for this job was a 50 to 250 ft-lb monster, and everything I was torquing was less than 33 ft-lb.

I started the day by cleaning the rust off the end of the crank so that I wouldn't destroy the new seal as I put it in. It turned out to be real easy, I rubbed it down with emery cloth and then polished it with this thing. It was doing a great job until all the wires started flying out of it. The little slivers of wire were a nightmare for the rest of the day, sticking into me over and over and over. It was a lot like working with fiberglass insulation only less itchy, more painful.

Clean enough.

Seventeen bucks worth of high grade hardware.

This is my oh so clever torque restraint. Just a bolt and coupling nut through one of the pressure plate bolt holes. I tried to tap the existing hole through to use the same size bolt, but the flywheel appears to be hardened for the ring gear. I was in grave danger of breaking the tap. So that was the other trip to the store, to buy a smaller bolt and nut.

Ahhh, all buttoned up.

APPLY PRESSURE HERE.

Then I cleaned up the transmission a little bit with a wire brush and put it on the jack. I was having a really hard time getting it oriented and then out of nowhere I got it right, and it was up high enough to line up one really long bolt that I could use as an alignment pin. So I just hung it from this while I shook it until everything lined up and it just slipped into place. I was able to push it all the way flush before tightening a single bolt. Gotta love that feeling.

I tightened it all up, then I jacked the engine back up into place, and did the two jack shuffle again to get the subframe back up.

Hooked up the shifter linkage with my new used bracket. Crap, a problem. I only have 3rd, 4th, 5th, and reverse. The cable is out of position.

Ah well, I'll deal with that tomorrow, as well as cleanup. It was 11:00 when I finally quit. Got everything underneath all buttoned up, and it's back on the ground.

Tomorrow I figure out if there's an adjustment somewhere on the shifter cable, which means tearing back into my console again, because there sure doesn't look like there's one out on the motor end. I'm hoping that the bracket isn't wrong for the later car, I can't imagine it would be, but it's the only thing that didn't come directly off the other car. I also have my dad's guys looking around their shop for the part, just in case it is different. Any of you guys have pictures of your cable bracket on the transmission? Does it look like the one I got?

Once that's figured out I can finish. All I have to do is install the clutch hydraulic line, bleed it, then reassemble the air box, battery tray, and charge air pipe, and I'm ready to load software and take it for a test drive!

I sure am tired though. And sore.

[MKC70]

I think just taking those pictures I would be tired. I can take a photo of the bracket off my 99 later today. Install seems to be going pretty smooth.

[Chilled Man]

make sure you dont have the cables backwards

[LloydDobler]

Yeah, I triple checked the stick function for a sideways H. Hehe.

MKC70 that'd be great if you can, so that I can rule out if I got the wrong bracket. I'm also going to call the dealer and see if the bracket is the same part number as the one I couldn't get, that'll rule out the bracket itself.

Edit: Called the dealer, it is a different part number, and the new one does not supersede the older one. So I have the wrong bracket.

[MKC70]

Just checked my car Lloyd, and the bracket looks identical to the one you have on your car. If they are different then it must be very minor. Need to find my camera.

Flat_six: The square mount replacement works the same as the older round one for vibration, just supposedly it lasts longer. I only installed mine a few months back, but it seems to be fine. One of the few things I have purchased from FCP that I don't mind going non OEM. My only complaint about the bracket from FCP is that the hole for the ground strap was not threaded for the bolt, but it was less than the EBAY one you posted.

[LloydDobler]

Quote, originally posted by MKC70 »

Just checked my car Lloyd, and the bracket looks identical to the one you have on your car.

Yeah, I found out today that they changed it in '00. I ordered it and I'll rig something up as a temporary fix in the meantime.

[LloydDobler]

So yesterday I scrounged wrecking yards and such, and my dad was looking too. His Volvo dealer said the part is only 2-5 days backordered, which my dealer couldn't tell me. So I ordered it again. And then I went to the wrecking yard and bought the second incorrect shifter cable bracket. I spent about half an hour trying to figure out a way to bolt it up next to the other one, but couldn't come up with anything. So then I decided to just weld it. I started by cutting across with a dremel.

Then I ground a chamfer on it and cleaned off all the plating on both parts.

Then I used a socket of the same diamter as the hole to align the two flanges, and another small socket to space out the free end, while clamping it all together.

I then decided "why bother digging out my welder when I'm going to get a crappy weld out of it and possibly burn my self or house down." So this morning I drove to my local Meineke shop and fortunately they still weld exhaust from time to time. I handed it to the guy, all clamped up and everything, and he handed it back about 3 minutes later. I then handed him ten bucks for his trouble.

Bracket installed:

Cables installed, almost like someone designed it that way!

Dang, I still made it a hair too long. 1/8" shorter and the stick would be perfect. Ah well, that'll be fixed when I get the factory bracket. And even though it's a little off to the right, I do have all 5 gears and reverse. That's all I really need.

After that I could finish! I routed the clutch line, but I really dislike the way this is run. It makes removing the airbox bracket impossible without opening up your clutch hydraulics.

Other end, with bleeder:

The auto brake reservoir has the clutch hydraulics nipple on it, I just had to razor the tip off to open it up.

And jam the clutch hose on it.

Then I bled the clutch. Apparently the pickup for the clutch hydrauilcs is above the minimum level of the brake reservoir, because I wasn't even quite down to the min level and did nothing but suck air. It took me about a half hour to figure out that all I needed to do was add some fluid to the reservoir and it would start bleeding. Anyway, because of my retardation bleeding took about an hour.

Buttoned it all back up, doesn't even look like anyone's been in there!

Ahhh, all is right in the world! Aside from the car being filthy, that is.

Oh man we're high tech now!

Reflash!

The flash was successful, and that's where I am right now. I have two more things to do. First is to refill the gearbox with oil, but Volvo calls out 75W-80 which isn't normal and can't be found anywhere. So off to Volvo I go, because I really don't feel like gambling on this. The second is that I have a no-start condition. I just get a click. I didn't take anything down, so either my starter got disconnected (which I doubt) or the ECU is still looking for the PNP switch to be closed. I think I'm supposed to jumper that to my clutch pedal switch, but when I talked to IPD the plan was to just bypass that function completely. I guess that got lost in translation.

So do any of you guys know which pins on that main transmission plug are the ones to jumper to get this thing to start? I'm also going to go ask my indy shop when I pick up the trans oil in about an hour, but I welcome all the information I can get. Also the reverse light pins if you know them. Thanks in advance.

Soooo close!

[Chilled Man]

you have to tire the two wires together I will check my car tomorrow and the reverse lights are off the top of the trany where that funky looking thing with the two plugs sticking up

its the two thicker blue wires that plug into it

[LloydDobler]

The indy shop I went to gave me the wiring diagram, so I got it, it started up just now. I had to jumper pins 6 and 7 on the tranny connector. The actual starter exciter wire passes through there, it's not a software control like I was thinking.

I have a flashing transmission light, I hope that's just a matter of pulling the bulb out, and that the ECU isn't going to have any problems. It's definitely not supposed to. I need to do the fluid fill before I drive it, but now it's time to go shopping/dinner/bath/bedtime for the little girl in the pictures above. Sigh. Dad's work is never done! Hehe.

[Chilled Man]

LOL flashing tranny light is the TCU trying to find the tranny

remove the TCU and then all you will have is a CEL

But if IPD is giving you the correct software for a Manual Tune plus performance that should keep the CEL from happening .

The only benfit of owning a 98 is just swap in a T5M ecu and go

[Runamok]

Great write-up, people that make posts like this are the backbone of good message boards.

Really sorry to go off topic but I have a question concerning something I've noticed in this thread........did the 5 speed shift knob design change at some pointon the C70? I've only ever seen them with the style that my '98 V70 has. I'm assuming that the "newer" style will fit my car. Anybody have the part number for the 5 speed knob that's pictured in this thread? Thanks.

[LloydDobler]

Quote, originally posted by Runamok »

Anybody have the part number for the 5 speed knob that's pictured in this thread? Thanks.

I don't know the number, but you can order it for an '04 C70 and it'll be the same one. I checked with the dealer and there were 3 parts listed, based on color alone. If the design changed, I would guess they changed it in 2000, as that's when the rest of the shifter assembly became slightly different than the previous generation. I'm going back to the wrecking yard monday for a reverse light switch plug, I'll yank a shift knob and see if the shifter looks the same as mine, if so you should be able to put a newer one on.

---

First drive was tonight. I did the irresponsible thing and left my kid alone in the house while I went around the block a few times, warmed it all up. She sleeps pretty hard, I wasn't too worried, and I didn't go farther than a minute or two walking distance.

Good thing I forced myself to do the transmission oil, as it had been drained most but not all the way, fooling me into thinking they hadn't drained it at all. It only had about a half pint in there, so I woulda burned something up if I hadn't changed it. Changing it did make me laugh though, as the filler plug is horrible to get to with the transmission in the car. I'm sure there's some way to do it when the car is on a lift but from my perspective I wasn't getting a wrench on it, let alone getting oil into it. I did buy a long skinny funnel though, and used the hole for the reverse light switch right on the top of the transmission. It has the shifter fork under it so you have to pour slow, but it's still a lot easier than trying to use the real filler hole.

Chilled Man told me which color wires to splice for the starter lockout, so I picked them out of the split loom and put a crimp butt connector on it, then stuffed it back in and wrapped the split loom with tape. Then I tied the tranny wire harness down under the battery. I'll dig back into that later when I want to wire in the reverse light, but for now I just want to break things in and make sure all the rest is in order.

So once I did all that I rolled it out. At first I was just going to test it a little, but then I decided that it needed to be warmed up all the way. The dash was showing 33° ambient and I had the top down.

The clutch engagement took me a bit to get used to, and I think it was a little grabby being brand new, but after a little while either I got the hang of it or it started smoothing out, or both. Overall this is a super refined car, the auto was nice but the manual is equally so. The clutch is really light yet you get great feedback, it's not hard to slip it right where it needs. I used to have problems with my Saab where I would think I was lifted off the pedal but would slip the clutch, like it always had another inch to go. Not this, when my foot naturally stops lifting, it's fully disengaged. Shifting, the gears just slip right in, so far the ratios seem just great. And shortening the shifter was absolutely the right thing to do. When braking, the gas pedal ends up above the brake pedal, so heel-toeing it is going to take some practice, but even if you miss the revs there isn't any jerking or bucking, thanks to the poly torque restraint bushings. They're fantastic, the only time you feel them is just off idle, and it's just enough to let you know the car is performance modified a little. Also, all the drivetrain parts I installed appear to be in great condition. I was a little worried about the CV joints or gearbox, just because they're used, but no worries anymore. I should get a free-flow exhaust to go with this tune, but for now I love my exhaust note, it's really understated but has an awesome snarl once you get on it. I'll take a video or two at some point. And now I can play it like an instrument instead of being at the whim of the tranny computer.

There is some surging under part throttle, right around 2000 and 3000 rpm, I'm not sure what's up with that. I'll get some more experience with the car down and see if it either goes away or gets worse, or what. I paid for the engine parameter data logging function so I can send files back to IPD/MTE for analysis if needed. At light or full throttle there is no surging.

Speaking of full throttle, maybe it's just because I haven't driven it for a while, but this thing is a monster now. It gets up to 60 in 2nd gear before I even realize I'm doing over 40. I only did a few runs, but holy crap. I'm really looking forward to getting everything run in and then really opening it up. I'm not going to test out 1st gear torque steer until I break the clutch in thoroughly.

And with that, I'm done. I still have a few follow up details to deal with, like wiring the backup lights and reinstalling the cable bracket once I get it, but I probably won't post that stuff in here unless needed.

Thanks for watching.

[Runamok]

Awesome, I'd really appreciate that. I'm going to order one if it'll fit

[Chilled Man]

you can use any manual shift knob that you want

I my pick previous in the thread I have a 04 S60R knob on my car.

you dont want 05 or newer since they have the numbers of 1-6 and reverse might confused someone else unless you go for a M66 swap in your coupe ............. thinking about it lol