I have almost finished installing an h42 four speed from a 1986 fj60 into my fj80 and thought I would post up what I did and why I wanted to convert to a manual transmission.
Why?
My first car was a ’77 40 series, and I have always preferred a manual transmission. Ever since I bought my current 80 four years ago I have felt that it would really benefit from a manual transmission. I love my 3fe, but it lacked power with the 35’s and the a440 and had a hard time pulling up hill, especially off-road. It always seemed to be between gears, first was too low for anything but crawling and 2nd was too high and the engine would bog down. I could have regeared to 5.29’s but that would have been expensive, and I would still have an automatic, which I don’t like and don’t truly understand. Also, off-road with drum brakes and smaller disks in the front, I always wished I had more engine braking ability for steep descents. On top of that, I had a serious and quickly worsening rear main leak, so the transmission was coming off anyway.
For the past few years I have been looking for info on a manual swap and found that a later model 60 series transmission should bolt up to the 3fe without too many modifications, at least it wouldn’t require an adapter. The 85-87 year 60 series actually had a 3f bellhousing, which clocked the transmission 7 degrees and also had a spacer between the transmission and transfer case to make the total length the same as an h55 5-speed. There are numerous threads in the 60 series forum about fj62 owners swapping their a440s for manuals. There were even a couple of swaps into 80s, but no one, that I could find, had actually used the later bellhousing, although everyone seems to agree that it should make things easier.
This was my favorite thread from orangefj45 and I read it and reread it:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/60-series-wagons/125194-fj62-out-auto-crawler.html
lowtideride did an amazing conversion with an h41 installed in an 80 for project uranus, but he used a 60 series body:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/60-series-wagons/57360-project-uranus.html
davisdrafting successfully installed an h41 into his 80, but he used a 2f bellhousing and had to do a lot of modifications:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-tech/144333-manual-trans-swap-ideas.html
https://forum.ih8mud.com/hardcore-corner/150577-need-help-clutch-fork-fj80.html
Based on these threads and other info gleaned from the net, I knew it could be done fairly easily and that I probably had the mechanical ability to finish the conversion. So it was time to start collecting parts.
Why?
My first car was a ’77 40 series, and I have always preferred a manual transmission. Ever since I bought my current 80 four years ago I have felt that it would really benefit from a manual transmission. I love my 3fe, but it lacked power with the 35’s and the a440 and had a hard time pulling up hill, especially off-road. It always seemed to be between gears, first was too low for anything but crawling and 2nd was too high and the engine would bog down. I could have regeared to 5.29’s but that would have been expensive, and I would still have an automatic, which I don’t like and don’t truly understand. Also, off-road with drum brakes and smaller disks in the front, I always wished I had more engine braking ability for steep descents. On top of that, I had a serious and quickly worsening rear main leak, so the transmission was coming off anyway.
For the past few years I have been looking for info on a manual swap and found that a later model 60 series transmission should bolt up to the 3fe without too many modifications, at least it wouldn’t require an adapter. The 85-87 year 60 series actually had a 3f bellhousing, which clocked the transmission 7 degrees and also had a spacer between the transmission and transfer case to make the total length the same as an h55 5-speed. There are numerous threads in the 60 series forum about fj62 owners swapping their a440s for manuals. There were even a couple of swaps into 80s, but no one, that I could find, had actually used the later bellhousing, although everyone seems to agree that it should make things easier.
This was my favorite thread from orangefj45 and I read it and reread it:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/60-series-wagons/125194-fj62-out-auto-crawler.html
lowtideride did an amazing conversion with an h41 installed in an 80 for project uranus, but he used a 60 series body:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/60-series-wagons/57360-project-uranus.html
davisdrafting successfully installed an h41 into his 80, but he used a 2f bellhousing and had to do a lot of modifications:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-tech/144333-manual-trans-swap-ideas.html
https://forum.ih8mud.com/hardcore-corner/150577-need-help-clutch-fork-fj80.html
Based on these threads and other info gleaned from the net, I knew it could be done fairly easily and that I probably had the mechanical ability to finish the conversion. So it was time to start collecting parts.
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