Thread: manual td6

Leaves a lot of questions - is it 2WD now or still 4WD? There were a couple of 2WD conversions done years ago by bunging in a BMW 5 speed out of one of the cars and ditching the front prop shaft, but if this is 4WD then it’s the first I’ve seen complete. Technically not the first though - missed that boat by about 8 or 9 years.

I did look long and hard into the when I owned mine and it is possible using an X5 manual transmission from a similar year but I couldn’t find one in Australia at a price I wanted to pay to do anything about it. The 2 speed TC would bolt up to this box with minor mods as the X5 is only single speed all wheel drive. The dowels and a couple of holes don’t line up but the splines, etc are the same between the 2 so doable from what I found.

There weren’t many X5 manuals sold here so the only one I found the wrecker wanted $4K for. In Europe they are common and cheap but didn’t go through with the faff of importing one.

Clutch can be done using a concentric hydraulic throw out bearing and a bridge in the transmission connector will make the trans ECU think it’s just in manual all the time. Prop shaft length is different but easy enough to overcome.

Interlocks from trans shifter need to be removed. Nothing hard if you have time, money and some good spanner/engineering skills - would love to know if this person went down a similar path or something completely different.

In a reply to a comment, the uploader said this:

"pretty much a bolt in job you need a coupling to match the gearbox to the transfer box and you need to fab up a pedal box, i welded a x5 clutch pedal to the original pedal box"

Thanks - no info looking at it from my phone. Assume he's used the X5 box then and he could well be the first to do a 4WD manual conversion.

Wouldn't they have just cannabilised a manual D3 "S" TDV6 and perhaps have to alter the prop shafts and make new mounting brackets etc.
Would think mounting the clutch pedal/brake pedals would have been a big task, along with perhaps sorting the EMS to allow for no automatic.
Lotta work, not sure about the gain from it.

Might be the sort of thing you'd do if you had the RR with a dead box, and a wrecked X5. Blokes with wrecking yards do this sort of thing as the cost is low.

Dunno about the EMS thing, but it seems to be doable.