5 spd swap completed... Wish I'd done this sooner!

[skishop69]

So I started the swap a week ago Sunday and farted around with it during the week. Finished it Sunday. What a world of difference. no more winding the rubber band to oblivion getting on the freeway or climbing steep grades. lol Some things I would like to mention about the swap....

 

If you wish to keep your stock interior and don't have access to a welder and good fabbing skills.... BUY JERRY's KIT! lol I did not as I have done more fabbing then I can remember. It was not fun and I'm sure Jerry's (bratsRus) kit would have been worth the money in time saved alone taking measurements, tack welding, fitting and readjusting. If you don't care about the stock interior, then be sure you grab the floor center console, the 4wd shifter and radio center console so it 'looks' like it's stock. The old parts won't work without making it look funky and even with the EA82 parts, you're still going to be fabbing stuff. A lot of you know I am somewhat of a purist when it comes to my Brats. If I can't modify it without permanently altering the vehicle, I won't do it. This means no drilling of holes or cutting of metal. This made things a lot more fun for me. Other than grinding the inspection opening at the bottom of the engine bell housing, everything I did is completely and easily reversible. And.... I still wonder if it was worth the effort. lol The only thing semi permanent was the drive line center support mount. I didn't really find anything substantial on how people were doing it other than drilling things and bolting.... If you have access to a welder, 2- 5" long pieces of 1 1/2" by 3/16" angle iron fit perfectly with the angles of the tranny hump and the angles on the carrier (support) mounts with minimal bending. Drill the appropriate sized holes in each piece in your chosen location, weld nuts to the inside, bolt them somewhat snug to the carrier, brace the driveline in place and tack weld them to the body. Remove the driveline and complete the welds. You need to fully weld them, or the body will eventually crack around the welds. Now I know someone is saying, "That's permanent!" Kind of... the angle iron can be cut above the weld and ground off, re-undercoated and no one will ever notice. Something to point out here... Remove the seats, pull back the carpet and place a folded up, wet towel over the area you will be welding. You don't want to catch the carpet jute or the sound deadening tar paper on fire. No, I did not find this out the hard way. lol Well, I did, but 20+ years ago....

 

The stick, linkage and stick 'shelf' or mount were modified in such a way that the shelf is attached only to the transmission and not the tranny and body. This required some extra support on the shelf mounting tube and from the shelf to the mounting plate on the tranny to keep it from eventually breaking. I also modified the bolt on 'ears' to the tranny that hold the tranny mounts. This dropped the tranny down far enough to not hit the inside of the tranny hump and keep the factory driveline angle as well as the exhaust angle.The two latter items are not terribly crucial, but I didn't want to beat the tunnel to fit or listen to the tranny thumping it and put extra stress on the poorly engineered exhaust manifold mounting studs.

 

There have been questions as to the wiring for the 4wd and 4lo switches and lights. EA81 4wd is switched from the stick itself and the 4lo is switched from the tranny. On the EA82, both are switched from the tranny. According to the EA82 schematics, there are 2 switches to do this. Not the case. It is one housing containing both switches. If you wire it up as suggested by others, you will get a 4lo light in 4wd and a 4wd light in lo. If I read the posts correctly. Looking at the schematics, it shows 3 wires coming out ot the switches. 4 technically, but the the black 'wires' are joined for ground and then the blue/red for 4wd and the green/black for 4lo. If you  look at the switch on the tranny, you only see 2 wires. The blue/red and the green/black. This indicates that the switch is grounded internally through the tranny and the black 'wire' does not even exist. Mind you, the tranny IS supposed to be grounded to the body with a black wire. So, this means that when you shift to 4wd, one switch is closed to ground lighting the indicator. When you shift to lo, the other switch is the closed to ground turning on the lo indicator. If both switches are closed to ground, then there is continuity in the blue/red and green/black wires. If you use these 2 wires, then you get the backwards indicator lamps. If you use the blue/red wire from the EA82 tranny and connect it to only the blue/red wire on the original connector for the EA81, you SHOULD get the correct indicator lights. I say should, because I was to ramped up to drive the damn thing after all the fabbing to worry about reverse lights and indicators. lol If this is not the case, I have already figured out a way to correct the problem using a relay but I won't go into that until I test the other wiring in the next week.

 

One last thing I noticed after the swap. The clutch cable had to be adjusted so that the throw out bearing has constant contact with the pressure plate to achieve proper clutch pedal throw. From a mechanical standpoint, this is no bueno as the TO bearing is supposed to be slightly off the pressure plate when disengaged so as not to keep it spinning/loaded and cause premature TO failure. This would indicate that the EA82 has more throw than the EA81 at the top of the clutch pedal. IE: The distance from the EA82 clutch pedal pivot to the top of the pedal is longer than the distance on the EA81 pedal causing the clutch cable to pull farther than on an EA81. Again, this is an assumption because I am was lazy to go uncover my XT to check it. I will check it as well, and if correct and possible, it would be wise to swap the EA81 pedal with the EA82 pedal to maintain proper throw to maintain proper throw and avoid premature TO failure. Yes, it works fine now, but it's not 'right' and I am anal about such things.

 

I will update on the last 2 items. If you haven't considered this swap, or have been putting it off... DO IT! lol It's a whole new vehicle!

Edited August 7, 2013 by skishop69

[wallaby]

I will agree....it makes a whole different vehicle

some of my observations to add,

i am not a purist - my brat is to drive! which i intend to do until it, or i cannot anymore

 

i used the EA82 console and shift linkage - worked great, small cut at the back of the shifter hole,

some mods to the radio console to make it fit

used the 4 speed tranny mounts with a couple new holes drilled and some spacers under the crosmember for clearance

also got the 1 piece driveline lengthened so i didn't have to mess with the carrier brg

[Gloyale]

All EA82 5spd 4wds have the 4wd indicator switch mounted at the top rear of the trans.

 

Early ones (85-87) have the lo range switch mounted to the shifter, inside under the center console.

Later ones have a switch on the side, right next to were the D/R lever extends forward through the case.

 

Each switch is a path that completes when closed to light.  12v in, 12v out when switch on.  Not a ground out setup. 

 

Sounds like you need to work on identifying which type you have and revise your wiring plans. 

 

I'm running an EA81 clutch cable with my EA82 5spd for 4 years now, no issues.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Gloyale

[skishop69]

"Each switch is a path that completes when closed to light.  12v in, 12v out when switch on.  Not a ground out setup. 

Sounds like you need to work on identifying which type you have and revise your wiring plans."

 

I will have to look into that because all the EA82 schematics I came across show the power being on the bulb side and the switch being the ground. Thanks for pointing out the difference in EA82 switching. I had no idea they had different set ups for specific years. This information tells me I have an 85-87 and will have to mount a micro switch to the lo linkage at the back of the tranny to get my lo light. Thanks!

 

It's not a cable issue, it's a pedal throw issue. It probably wouldn't cause a problem depending on how much you drive and you're driving style. This is a 70-80 mile per day driver in stop and go on the freeway and I'm a fairly aggressive driver so I just don't wat to take any chances. I still need to look into the pedals to see if there actually is a difference or if there is something else not quite right.

 

I really wanted to do the one piece driveline, but the missus has been out of work for a year and money is tight. The only reason I finally got around to the swap after sitting on the parts for over 2 years was that 3 gear on the EA81 finally started popping out on it's own.

 

Edit: So I just went back to the schematics for the EA81, the early EA82 and the late EA82. The are all ground switched, not voltage switched. I do have the early style so I was wrong about nthe wiring in my previous post. Using the wiring/switch on the early tranny results in the tranny 4wd switch illuminating the lo light at the same time as the 4wd switch in the console lights the 4wd light. Hence the confusion.

Edited August 7, 2013 by skishop69

[Gloyale]

My bad, you are correct it is a ground switched system in that the bulb gets power in the dash, and the switch at the trans completes the ground.

 

What I meant was that the wire isn't gorunded through the tranny case. One of the wires going into the switch is ground, and the switch closing completes the circuit to the other wire, lighting the indicator on the dash.

 

My main point was that there are seperate switches for Lo and 4wd.

[skishop69]

Yep, which made more sense knowing there were 2 different types of switching. I was looking at the late schematics scratching my head going..... This says 4 wires down to 3 and I only gots 2! lol I have seen other manufaturers schematics that will actually show a case ground as a ground circuit with a wire and assumed that's what was done here. We all know what happens when you assume! lol ( ! )