Yet Another A440 to H55 Swap With Pics

[Mr Technical]

I've been lurking on the forums for a while, and have finally decided to take the plunge and swap my A440 automatic transmission to the H55 manual in my '90 FJ62. I thought I'd post up my description of the process as it unfolds, as well as pics, in the hope that the next person doing this swap will have an easier time of it. There are other great threads that go over the process in detail too, and this thread is merely meant to supplement some details. That having been said, here we go!

I started with hunting down a gently used H55 transmission with a transfer case (TC) already attached. Cam at Iron Pig in Fredericksburg, VA helped me locate one that a friend had, and happened to be going up to PA, (where the friend lives). He was good enough to pick it up and deliver it to me at no extra charge.

Here are some pics:

 

[Mr Technical]

Next, I set to work finding all the parts that I would need to complete the project. Here's the list so far. I'll try to remember to edit it as I get further into the project to keep it current.

Needed:
Pedal bucket
Clutch assembly (clutch, pressure plate, clutch fork, throw out bearing and pilot bearing etc.)
Bell housing
Flywheel
Clutch master cylinder
Clutch slave cylinder
Hard line to connect the two
Drive shafts (from donor FJ60 or rework the ones I have)
Transmission hump cover from FJ60(or hole in floor for the shift lever)
Gear shift boot from FJ60
TC shift boot from FJ60
Cross-member
Rubber transmission mount to cross member?
5th gear oiler (later found out already in the transmission)
Oil pan gasket (not necessary but good time to do it)
Rear main oil seal (again, not necessary, but why not?)
Reverse lights switch? (later found out just need to splice wires)
Misc./longer bolts etc? (remains to be seen)


That's the list that I started with. I'll comment more on what I find out as I source/install each part.

 

[Mr Technical]

I looked around for a good FJ60 parts truck to yank a bunch of stuff from, but nothing was local enough. I talked to Cam, and he said that he'd help get a lot of the parts that I need. Sure enough, they had an open house two Saturday's ago, and when I showed up, he had a pile of parts waiting for me for a very reasonable price. Specifically, he found the bell housing, used clutch plate and pressure plate, bearings, fork, new TC boot, and flywheel, as well as the bolts that I'd need. I've heard that the flywheel for my year ('90) needs to be a non-US flywheel. I'll take Cam's word for it that the one he sourced is correct, but maybe someone would like to confirm/clarify what I heard about it being non-US.

He also said that he had a truck that I could pull the pedal bucket from, as well as having the correct length drive shafts (the swap needs a longer rear DS and the front is shorter of course). I said great, and said I'd show up on that Monday to pull the pedal bucket.

BTW, the open house at Iron Pig Offroad was a lot of fun. They have a 'rock garden' and people were tearing it up.

 

[Mr Technical]

I'd read up a lot about how to pull the pedal bucket, including a lot of good information from this thread:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/60-series-wagons/390589-out-semi-old-a440-h55-2.html

After all the reading I did, I thought it would be almost easy to get the bucket out... WRONG


I'd heard that people usually pull the dash to get it out, since there are bolts that are almost up by the windshield, and the top right one is covered with a duct for the window defrost.

I dropped the steering wheel, but didn't pull it out. I had a hard time finding all the bolts that held the dash in (left my FSM at home), and even though it was a parts truck, I didn't want to destroy it, so I didn't pull the dash either. I ended up using a swivel joint with a looong extension to get out the bottom two bolts of the upper 4 (one on each side), but that still left the 2 uppermost bolts. All the other bolts were out at this point. I finally used a 12mm gear-wrench and some contortion to get the last 2 bolts out. Gotta love the 5 degrees between clicks that those wrenches have! Finally the bucket was free

I also grabbed the clutch master cylinder, even though I'll be buying a new one from Carquest (who is said to stock true Aisin parts). I did that so I could use the hole pattern as a guide to drilling the firewall on my truck, even if the part took a while to arrive. I also pulled the transmission hump cover for similar reasons. I plan to either modify it to fit the cutout on my truck, or at least use the hole location as a guide to cutting a hole for the gear shifter in my old one. I'll post pictures of both of the hump covers side by side to show the differences, and what I plan to do.

At this point, I'd only been working on someone else's parts truck, or loose parts, not my own rig. Time to change that.

 

[slcfj62]

That's a very good way to do it--learn and make any mistakes on the parts truck when you take the pedal bucket out. Sounds like you are well on your way.

 

[Mr Technical]

What? You mean this is the right way to do it?! I must be doing something wrong, I usually try to do things the hard way.

I got some time over the weekend to start work on my truck. I started by pulling both the front seats and the carpeting. Good time to clean the carpeting well, since my wife has been asking, but really did it to get access to the transmission hump cover.

Next I disassembled the auto shifter and removed the hump cover. I saw right away that I can't just put the new cover in place of the old one. If you refer to the 1st pic below, you'll see that under the shifter mount plate, the corner is cut off at an angle. You can also see the donor cover plate with its 90 degree corner. Also, most of the bolt holes don't line up, though some do. I think the easiest thing to do will be to cut a hole in the FJ62 plate.

In pic 2, I've pulled the steering column completely, and you also get a better shot of that corner I mentioned. I had planned to take the steering shaft loose at the pinch bolt, and had loosened it there, but when I yanked on it, it split closer to the wheels and came out with the rubber cover still attached. If someone thinks that might cause a problem, let me know.

Pic 3 shows the carnage that used to be my dash. It took pulling a bunch of screws to get to this point, but fortunately, I had my FSM with me at this point. The duct work (except unfortunately for the defrost duct), instrument cluster and glovebox all came out. There's probably a better way to do this, but having fought with the pedal bucket on the parts truck, I wasn't taking any chances. In pic 3 you can also see one of the bolt locations if you look just below the black defrost duct at the top, under the white speedo connector. There's another one behind that duct that's the real pain.

I think I must have left my trusty 12mm gear-wrench in the parts truck, so I had to pull the topmost bolts on both sides using a box end wrench. Not very fun. But at last, the original pedal bucket popped out. Next step is putting the donor bucket in.

 

[esh]

Be sure to check the pilot bearing spins true. I had to swap mine after it began chirping and even with a two post lift it's a long day. We had 3 OEM replacements on hand and they were all out of round. Ended up going with the one closest to true.

 

[Mr Technical]

Esh,
Thanks for the warning! I'll keep it in mind. It would really stink to get everything buttoned up and have an annoying squeak.

 

[Mr Technical]

Time to install the donor pedal bucket. It turns out, even with all the practice, and more extensive tear down, the install of the new bucket took a long time. The problem had to do with getting everything situated correctly to drill the 3 holes for the clutch master cylinder and studs.

In the first pic, you can see I took a Sharpie and drew around the inner edge of the pre-existing partial cutout in the firewall. You can also just barely make out the edge of the lower right mounting hole.

In pic 2, you'll notice that there are 4 holes.
I mistakenly thought that the smaller cut-outs at the 4:00 and 10:00 positions were correctly spaced and sized, so I drilled the lower one before I got wise. I don't know what they are supposed to match, but not the clutch master that I brought along as a template from the donor truck. The large hole was made with a 1.5 inch hole saw, and wasn't too difficult. It's position also checked out as correct. The partial cutout helped to keep the hole saw more or less on center.

The two holes to line up with the studs on the back side of the clutch plate were the biggest problem. I measured the center to center distance of the holes on the master cylinder with my digital caliper and came up with just a hair under 60mm apart. I went to my CAD software, and drew up something similar to pic 3. Once I printed it out, being careful not to scale it up or down, I cut out the center 1.5 inch hole with scissors. Then I taped it centered over the hole, and as level as I could on the engine side of the firewall. Finally, I took an automatic center-punch and marked the ends of the angled line which indicate both the 60mm spacing, and an eyeballed estimate of the angle that the holes were offset. I had to do it that way since I was working alone, and it was hard to hold the master in place and hit the holes with a transfer punch.

By the way, pic 3 is representative, but not accurate. If you're doing the same project, and you need a file that's more accurate, let me know and I'll send you the actual file that I used.

 

[Mr Technical]

Once I got the holes drilled, it still took a little rework with a step drill bit from the engine side to enlarge the holes enough to allow for slight errors in my placement of the template (distance between holes was right, but the rotation was a little off).

After more time than I'd like to admit spent wrangling and wrestling the bucket around, I finally got it to sit in place, and bolted it up. BTW, I know there's surface rust on the bottom edge of the bucket, and I would have liked to clean it up and repaint it, but I'm heading to the family cabin in a week and a half with the truck, so time is short. Extra credit question: Who knows what color the donor truck was?

I put the seats and steering column back in, but not the carpet or trans hump cover. I'd just have to pull them again this weekend, so I left them out. Also put the dash all back together. No missing or extra bolts/screws when I finished, so I'm happy. Now I'm working on getting the parts I still need before this weekend, when I'll actually do the swap. Stay tuned!

 

[Mr Technical]

What year?

Can anyone tell me what year FJ60 I should order the clutch master and slave cylinders for? Nathan with IPOR mentioned something about certain years having better slave cylinders, then my cell phone cut out. I'll probably be ordering from Carquest if that makes a difference. Gotta get this stuff ordered ASAP so I can do the swap this weekend. TIA

 

[chitown40]

Just from memory, I thought the early pre-85 slave cylinders had an adjustable rod making it, well, easier to adjust. I found when I replaced the slave cylinder on my old '86 FJ60, I had to shorten the rod a bit to get the adjustment I needed. I think you could probably call Kurt at cruiseroutfitters and ask him, as well as order from him. He'd get you the right parts.

 

[Mr Technical]

Thanks for the help chitown40. Your post came in just after I ordered the slave cylinder from Carquest, so I'll have to hope that it works. It's been a busy day. Here's what I've got done so far:

I ordered the cork oil pan gasket from Napa. Will be here tomorrow.
Ordered the rear main seal set from Autozone, as well as the Felpro Snap up clips using the number that I got from here

https://forum.ih8mud.com/60-series-wagons/400721-best-way-change-oil-pan-gasket.html

I helped Jose (JLH911) do this last weekend and he had these things call Snap Ups made by Felpro (Part Number ES72865). They are the frickin bomb.

After I ordered those two parts, I was told that I should go with a Toyota OEM rear seal, and that the oil pan bolt holes are 6mm. So I cancelled the the rear main seal from Autozone, and ordered it from the local Toyota dealer at 3X the price. It'll be worth it if I don't have to replace it a month from now.

As far as the clips go, the part number listed in the thread quoted above (PN:ES72865) came back as 8mm, so that's what I ordered originally, but to be safe, I also ordered the 6mm (Autozone PN:ES72864). I believe the 6mm are the right ones, but will confirm that.

I also ordered the clutch master and slave cylinder from Carquest, and swung by to pick them up. Guess what? The hole pattern on the master cylinder looked like it would have matched the cut outs seen on my firewall in post #9, but not the two studs of the donor pedal bucket (which came from an '83 truck BTW). I snapped some pics of the wrong part below so you can see what I mean.

Now it's all clear
Since the donor truck was an '83, and my truck is a '90, it's obvious that the style changed in between (I'm betting April of 85...can anyone confirm for future reference?). It looks like I've done things the hard way again-see post #6. I could have drilled where the cutouts were located on my firewall, and then knocked out the studs on the donor bucket, which would have made the whole thing go in a LOT easier, Then I could have just ordered the same new style master cylinder that I got first (I asked for an '87 at Carquest).

That's not what I did at all. I sweated for half a day and then had to return the '87 master cylinder so I could get the correct '83 master cylinder. That's now on order, along with a new '87 pilot bearing and both should get here tomorrow morning.

Good news is I stopped by Iron Pig Offroad (IPOR) and picked up the correct drive shafts, as well as the correct cross member (note to self, indention goes to the front).

Cam also hooked me up with a flexible clutch line segment, so engine movement won't flex the hard clutch line. Finally, grabbed a leather e-brake boot cover from the parts truck since mine's chewed up pretty bad.

Oh yeah, Cam had a clutch alignment tool laying around from all the clutch replacements they do, and threw that in for free. Did I mention how great they are at IPOR?

Looks like the stage is set for a long and productive weekend. All the parts are supposed to be here tomorrow morning, so I'll be ready to go on Saturday.

 

[Spook50]

Hot damn, by the time I do my conversion, I'll practically have a step-by-step for the whole process thanks to all these threads!

I'm definitely getting excited to do my conversion. The only thing I'm a little wary of is how exactly I'm going to measure for placement of the new crossmember mounts once I'm ready to burn them on. Have yet to make up my mind on whether I want to get another pair of mounts off the donor 60 or just cut my factory ones off and move them forward.

 

[Mr Technical]

Glad to hear this might help someone!

I don't know if it would be too easy to cut either truck's mounts off cleanly enough to reuse them. I'm just planning on getting some heavy duty angle iron and fabbing new ones up myself. I'll let you know how that goes. I'm also planning to leave the old mounts in place. I can't see any reason to cut them off, and a few why I should leave them in place (time, hassle, future aux . mounts for sliders?). I've got a lot of running around today to pick up all the parts I ordered yesterday, and one of my stops will be the local steel yard for the mount stock. I'm trying to get all the errands done today so I'm not interrupted too much on Sat-Mon. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.

 

[Spook50]

Glad to hear this might help someone!

I don't know if it would be too easy to cut either truck's mounts off cleanly enough to reuse them. I'm just planning on getting some heavy duty angle iron and fabbing new ones up myself. I'll let you know how that goes. I'm also planning to leave the old mounts in place. I can't see any reason to cut them off, and a few why I should leave them in place (time, hassle, future aux . mounts for sliders?). I've got a lot of running around today to pick up all the parts I ordered yesterday, and one of my stops will be the local steel yard for the mount stock. I'm trying to get all the errands done today so I'm not interrupted too much on Sat-Mon. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.

You're the first I've seen go the angle iron route. I've got a drill press and a steel cutting disc for my miter saw so I could go that route too. Curious to see details on how you do yours.

 

[Mr Technical]

OK, I'm finally ready to post some updates about what happened with the install. Most of the parts arrived and were picked up Friday night, with the exception of the correct Felpro Snapups, (which wouldn't arrive till Monday). Before I headed over to the shop where I'd be doing the swap, I took some pictures of:
1) FJ62 pedal bucket
2) Flex clutch line
3) New Aisin master and slave cylinders

 

[Mr Technical]

Saturday

I got a late start on Saturday (around 3:00) and headed over to a friend's auto repair shop. The big reasons for doing it there, beside the lift was the great trans jack they have. See below. First thing to do was get the truck up on the lift. I was very carefull to put the pads of the lift as far out of the way as possible so I wouldn't be in the way of the new crossmember location. Once it was up in the air I started disconnecting everything, starting with the drive shafts. Not too much to take off, and pretty self explanatory.
1) Here's the before pic
2) Pic of the right frame rail showing a bump-out in the lines, ostensibly for the alternate mount location
3) The beautiful tilt in 2 axes transmission jack rated to 1,000 lbs.

 

[Mr Technical]

Next I removed the access covers just aft of the engine. The starter is out by now. I used a big prybar inserted into the bottom access to turn the flywheel, and access the 6 bolts, one by one, that hold the torque converter to the flywheel.

 

[Spook50]

Awesome details. I'm almost bummed that I won't have anything extra to cover when I do my install Of course I'll still document my experience as well.

Waiting with baited breath (haven't brushed yet) to see how you measure for and do up the crossmember mounting.