With the engine out of the way it was time to have a look at what modifications I needed to make to the FJZ80 in order to allow a factory style fitment of the Manual Transmission. I had heard there were differences between the cross member locations as well as the cross members. This sort of proved to be true but wasn't as bad as I thought.
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The auto cross member and the manual cross member are exactly the same, the only difference is that on the manual it sits further forward so due to the taper in the chassis rails this means the bolts are further in relative to the factory slots. There is a small bolt location plate that sits on the slots which is spot welded so you pop that off and Auto becomes manual. I wanted to use the Auto Cross member as the manual one was crusty from years of love.
The top crusty one is the factory manual, the bottom clean one is the Auto.
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The trans mount mounting holes are exactly the same .
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You can see the crusty one sits in closer but still within same slots
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I didn't take a picture of the chassis but the Auto Chassis has the Manual Trans mount holes in it from factory it just does not have the captive nuts. This leaves you two options, you can just use nuts and bolts or you can weld in nuts / make nut plates. I made a nut plate using the chassis as a template and drilled a third hole in the center to spot weld it in place giving me the easy of fitting without screwing around with nuts. End result is that to look you can't tell it isn't factory and if you knew the only sign is that the Auto Holes have nuts in them which factory manual chassis does not.