5 speed manual conversion

There have been various ways to do a 5spd swap. Here is a list of parts used by various people.

Z32 5sp trans
-VG30e maxima clutch kit, Vg30e flywheel bolts, custom driveshaft and you’re ready to bolt it in.
-swap over the speed sensor adapter from the auto M30 trans of you have a 1990
– Z31 clutch pedal and brake pedal.
Brake pedal bracket will need cut down to fit. Clutch pedal will need one hole drilled for the 3rd stud. Master cylinder bolts to clutch pedal
-87 Z31 5speed Trans, stock engine and stock crossmember.
Measurement I gave them was 47 1/4 inches from output shaft to rear differential
-5 speed manual conversion (Using 85 Z31 turbo 5spd, starter, clutch, and flywheel)
-Custom one piece driveshaft
– some have used Sentra brake booster.

Z32 transmission

Z32 non turbo 5 speed
New 1990 Nissan Maxima Flywheel
New 1985(Z31) Nissan 300zx non turbo (240mm) clutch kit
New 1993(Z32) Nissan 300zx non turbo clutch slave cylinder
New 1990(S13) Nissan 240sx Clutch master cylinder
New Longer Flywheel bolts, M10-1.0*25mm
New Clutch Pressure Plate bolts, M8-1.25*20mm
Custom New Driveshaft with 1310 u-joints on a z32 non turbo slip yoke and M30 R200 flange
Almost New 1990 Infiniti M30 Starter
Used JDM 180sx clutch pedal and bracket(looks the same as 240sx pedal)
Stock JDM Z32 remote shifter bracket and shifter.
3/16 Brake hardline for clutch
S13 brake pedal

F31coupes:

Ok, Im new to this form but not new to M30’s. I am on my second coupe, and still loving every minute behind the wheel. I have sold my 1st M30 to a close friend and the transmission went. Instead of replacing the dogamatic, we elected to swap in a 5-spd from a 1985 N/A 300zx cpe. Now down to the nitty gritty.

Removal is pretty straight forward, unbolt and bag bolts, unplug all harness connectors and other electronics from auto tranny. You will need all of the electronics attached to the auto tranny, so dont cut them off. After the driveshaft is removed and the tranny is out you have to remove the flexplate from the crank. After the flexplate is off, you will notice a pressed in metal bushing coming out of the crankshaft, this bushing carries the auto trans input shaft. This bushing has to be removed in order for the 300zx pilot bearing/trans input shaft to fit properly. After the bushing is removed, insert the pilot bearing, attach 300zx flywheel and torque to specs. We used a ACT clutch and stock pressure plate. You will need the pressure plate bolts from the 300zx. We installed a new throwout bearing and lightly lubed the trans input shaft. We lined everything up with an alignment tool and raised the tranny. There are 2 gold colored metal brackets on the bottom of the block that were used with the auto tranny, these must be removed. The tranny should bolt up just fine, except for the bottom most hole, which we left empty.
Next, we noticed there was no way the crossmember was going to meet our tranny mounts. This ment a little custom mount had to be made which was quite easy to do actually. All it is is a simple 1/4 thick metal plate with the neccesary mount holes drilled out to join the tranny and crossmember. Piece of cake. Can you say solid mounts?
Next we had to get our driveshaft cut. The auto M30 driveshaft has 34 splines on its yolk, the 300zx N/A tranny has 32. This ment we needed to use the yolk from the 300zx on the M30 driveshaft. The length of the M30 driveshaft is perfect and should not be changed, just cut off the M30 yolk and get the 300zx yolk welded on and balanced.

Next is the clutch pedal/master cyl. Again, not just a bolt in affair. We used the pedal assembly off the 85 300zx, and had to trim some of the bracketry off (this was arbitrary trimming until the pedal fit nicely under the dash.) We mounted the pedal to the 300zx master cyl throught the firewall and found the mount to be way too flimsy, as the firewall flexed too much for our liking. We braced the firewall with a 1/8″ metal plate which helped but did not completely cure the flexing. We then connected the master cyl to the slave cyl using a s13 240sx clutch line. It is not a perfect fit but close enough. We then bled the lines until the clutch moved freely. The clutch pedal will interfere with your brake pedal. We cut the left side of the brake pedal off with an air saw and bent the clutch pedal to the left. This worked out just fine.

Next is the most tricky part, the wiring issues. Our goal was to keep the car thinking it has a auto tans and is always in park. This way there will be no problems with the security system, the shift lock, or the ecu not letting the car start because it is not in park. All of the plugs and connectors from the auto tranny now come into play. There is a nuetral/park switch located on the center console where the auto shifter used to be. This switch has a sliding lever built into it which slides up when the auto shifter is in nuetral or park. You must raise this lever, we used 2 standard sized zip ties to keep it up. Next, the auto shifter connected to the trans with another rotating lever. This tells the tranny what gear to select. This lever must coincide with the Park/Nuetral switch we zip tied. It should be rotated to its front most position wich is park. Now the ecu should think the car is in park.

We still do not have a tach or speedo. We have not had the time to figure out the wiring on those yet. The speedo gear for the M30 is too large to fit in the 300zx trans. We may try slicing the 300zx speedo gear onto the M30 harness, but have not tried it yet.

Next, the M30 starter will not work with this transmission. We simply prucahsed an 85 300zx N/A front mount starter. It bolts in, and lines up just fine. We had to solder the ground/plug wires from the M30 starter onto the 300zx one, pretty easy stuff. The main power wire is a direct bolt on.

Pheew, there it is. If I were to do this again i would seriously consider using the T-5 trans from the turbo 300zx’s of the same year, as the previous manual swap post seems much easier. But for those of you who were curious, I did the grunt work so now you really know the dirty little details… In the future, i may take some pics of this stuff, but we really didnt have time for that crap while we were doing it.

Renny:

Parts List
1985 300ZX parts:
5–speed transmission w/ mounting bolts
starter
starter bracket (or washers)
driveshaft
clutch pedal (note: I switched to an S13 clutch pedal)
clutch master cylinder
clutch slave cylinder
flywheel
clutch
clutch cover bolts (pressure plate)
brake pedal (note: haven’t tried a 3Z pedal yet)

Hydraulic Clutch System
3Z Clutch Pedal

Clutch Master Cylinder

Clutch Slave Cylinder

Stainless Steel Clutch Line

Under the hood, remove the 2 nuts holding the black cover plate located to the right of the brakebooster

The shift lock control unit is mounted to the bracket on the other side

Remove the box from the bracket and tuck out of the way

Save the rubber gasket from the metal plate

To make it easier to work under the dash, you can remove the metal brace

Notice the spacers on the firewall for the clutch pedal bracket.

The 300ZX clutch pedal bracket has it’s own spacers
You’ll have to remove the M30’s spacer on the firewall to mount the 3Z clutch pedal
If you use an S13 clutch pedal you’ll need to trim the M30 spacers or remove it altogether and make your own out of steel tube (because the S13 clutch pedal bracket doesn’t have it’s own spacers)

Nicely trim the rubber cover under the dash to make room for the bracket

Or just rip it out
This stuff is so old and brittle it just crumbled when I tried to cut it nicely
Notice the two threaded studs
You’ll have to remove the air conditioning duct to make room to work (It’s a pain to remove!)

Close-up of 3Z bracket

I removed the M30 spacers from the firewall by drilling out the spot weld

Mount the clutch pedal to the firewall
You’ll need to fabricate a mounting bracket from the 2 studs to the top of the clutch pedal bracket
This will help stiffen the clutch pedal
It looks like these were meant for that purpose
I wonder what clutch pedal would just bolt right in

What’s wrong with this picture?
I ordered an ’89 300ZX clutch master by mistake
I have a spare S13 clutch master and it is basically the same size

Make sure you have the clevis on the end of the shaft
Some don’t come with the clevis

Reuse the rubber gasket saved from the cover plate and mount the clutch master

Run in your clutch line from the slave cylinder to the master
Someone used an S13 hardline (An S13 hardline is about 75 inches total length)
I had an 80 inch long stainless steel braided line made (clutch master fitting 10mm x 1.0mm male)

Oops! That’s gonna be a problem
Either bend the M30 brake pedal and cut the footrest down to size or
try a 3Z brake pedal (I haven’t tried this yet)

Notes:
I initially used a 3Z clutch pedal, but it would bottom out to the floorpan and the clutch would still grab
I tried adjusting the clevis to max and could not get the clutch to fully disengage
In the end, I resorted to using an S13 clutch pedal
I think it works much better and allows full range of motion
‘J’ was able to make the 3Z pedal to work before

Tranny

Disconnect the battery
Raise and properly support vehicle on jack stands

Remove the 4 bolts and nuts that attach the driveshaft to the differential

Remove the 2 nuts for the center bearing bracket

Carefully slide the driveshaft out of the transmission and set aside

Driveshaft comparison
M30 shaft on top
300ZX shaft on bottom
You can see the obvious difference in length

The 3Z yoke is larger in diameter

Spline comparision

The hole spacing is also different on the flanges

Starter removal

Disconnect the battery cable to the starter
The nut is hiding under the rubber boot

Disconnect the starter wire and remove the 2 mounting nuts holding the starter to the transmission

My M has seen better days
Broken teeth!

The M30 starter on the left is very different from the 3Z starter on the right

Starter comparison

Remove the exhaust elbow to make room to work
There are 3 nuts on the exhaust manifold end and a bolt/nut on the catalytic end

Remove the auto trans fluid cooling lines

Remove the shift linkage from the shift lever by removing the clip

Disconnect the speedo cable

Unsecure the wiring harness from the chassis coming from the tranny

Unplug the harness connectors up near the battery tray and feed back down under the car

Remove transmission mounting bolts
There are a total of 6 tranny-to-engine bolts (upper half of tranny)
and 4 engine gusset-to-tranny bolts (bottom half of tranny)

Support transmission with a floo rjack
Remove the bolts and nuts for the transmission mount
Carefully lower the transmission slightly
The lower rear plate will slide out from between the engine and tranny
Be ready to catch it

Pull the transmission away from engine as far as you can to expose the flexplate-to-torque convertor mounting bolts

Remove the 4 bolts that attach the torque convertor to the flexplate
You will need to rotate the flexplate to remove all 4 bolts

Carefully pull the tranny out and lower to the ground

Watchout! This sucker is HEAVY

Out with the old

Remove the M30 flexplate from the engine and save the bolts

Remove the auto shifter

Transmission comparison

Remove the M30 tranny mount and attach it to the 3Z tranny directly if you have the turbo tranny
You might need to elongate the tranny crossmember holes a little

If you have the NA tranny, the holes will not line up to the chassis so you’ll have to make adaptor plates
I’m using an NA tranny

Test fit
You can skip forward to making the adaptor plates
At this point I temporarily mounted the tranny to get the driveshaft length
You’ll need to weld the front of the 3Z shaft onto the front half of the M30 shaft
No change to the rear half
The overall length came out to 50 inches end-to-end (allows for 1 1/4 “ of play)
or 43 1/2 inches from center of front joint to center of rear joint
With this length it slides into the tranny the same distance when it was in the 3Z, but you could make it longer (see other’s posts regarding their driveshaft length)

I currently have no info on driveshaft length for a turbo tranny

This is where the shifter hole lines up

The ashtray used to be there

The transmission mount holes are 1 7/8 inches forward

I made adaptor plates for the mount
The holes are 1 7/8 inches center-to-center

Auto trans bracket will be in the way of the 3Z starter

You’ll need to remove the 2 bolts to get the bracket out
This bracket can be reused as a spacer for the starter to provide proper ring gear-to-starter engagement (after cutting off excess) or use 1/4 in worth of washers
I removed the tranny after the test fit and continued with the install

The automatic trans uses a pilot convertor on the crankshaft output

You will need to remove this for proper clearance for the manual tranny

You can use a pilot bearing puller to remove the bearing
(Bearing puller courtesy of ‘J’. Thanks for lending.”

Apply grease

Insert pilot bearing. It’s also a good time to replace the rear main seal.

Install flywheel reusing M30 flexplate bolts or use brand new ones

Flywheel bolt part #

Install clutch

Install pressure plate

Use the 3Z starter plate shown on the bottom

Install new throwout bearing
Lube the tranny input shaft
Raise tranny up and mount to engine using the 3Z tranny bolts
Mount clutch slave to tranny

Modify the 3Z starter connection
Cut and reuse the M30 connector

Connect to terminal on the 3Z starter

Crimp on a connector

Voila!

Mount the starter using the 3Z mounting bolts
You can either use 1/4 in thick worth of washers or cut/grind the M30 auto trans bracket for use as a spacer as mentioned earlier
Attach battery cable and starter wire to starter

M30 speedo cable

It fits!
1990 M30s come equipped with a speedo cable, while 1991 and up have an electronic speed sensor

Mount the ground wire
Also, you can remove the extra bracket from the tranny with the rubber hangers

Install shifter

I have the 3Z rubber

Save the auto shifter plate as a template to make a metal cover for the shifter hole

Custom driveshaft back from the shop

3Z front

M30 rear

Beautiful weld!

Leftovers

Slide the driveshaft into tranny

Loosely mount center bearing carrier

Install the 4 driveshaft-to-diff bolts then go back and tighten the center bearing nuts

Wiring
Not much. This is all you need to get your car to start.

Install the jumper into the bottom grey plug
It will have 2 connections in it

Or you can reuse the old tranny harness and wire in a clutch interlock switch and relay
(I’ll cover how to wire this the way the factory would have done it)
This is for safety to prevent starting with the clutch engaged

To top it off, a 3Z shift knob
Now it’s official

———————————-
EZ22:

Well I have started my swap a couple days ago and will use this post in order to reflect on some of the issues(rant ) that I ran into; hopefully it will be helpful for others looking to do the swap, using the stickied 5 speed swap as a guide of course.

So far the parts that I have used are:

And I have a S13 brake pedal on its way.

This is the transmission when I got it. It of course is a Z32 non turbo 5 speed.

Pull out the slush box with the torque converter, auto cooling lines and wiring harness and you end up with this.

With the auto transmission out of the way, now is the time to cut that stiffner up in the transmission tunnel as it will not clear on the stock Z32 remote shifter bracket(Ask me how I know 🙄 ).

I found that the driverside needed more room so I cut approximately where the black lines are.

I ran into my first problem installing flywheel.
Removing the pilot converter was horrible, but then when I go to install the pilot bushing I find that it doesn’t fit. A run to a couple of auto parts stores confirms that I have the right pilot bushing, so I ended up shaving the outside diameter down some to get it to fit(press fit). Also, I used new flywheel bolts because the driveplate bolts are too short and would not have enough threads in the crank so I bought new M10-1.0 25mm long bolts; some blue Loctite wouldn’t hurt on these neither.

Add an OEM replacement clutch disc with some grease and an alignment tool.

Pressure plate with stock Z31 non turbo clamping force and new pressure plate to flywheel bolts, M8-1.25*20 mm.

Install the 5 speed after cleaning and lubing it up. I had to reuse the Z32 throwout bearing because the Z31 one in the clutch kit was not the same; it was the same diameter, but was not as thick. I also had to remove a stud from the M30 auto for the starter and install it on the 5 speed as the mine only had one stud on the bottom. I was also able to use all the M30 bolts from the top of the bellhousing to the engine block from the auto in the same holes for the 5 speed. On the bottom I reused the dust plate that goes in between the block and the transmission and was able to use two of the stock M30 auto bolts on through both the passenger and driver side engine braces. The 2 other bolts I had to get new longer ones with a nut and a pressure washer. Of course as mentioned in the write up, the stock M30 transmission crossmember bolts up to the stock Z32 transmission and rubber mount.

This is roughly were the shifter is located after installing it to the transmission. I still have to figure out how to mount it to the body and seal it up.

I had I new one piece driveshaft made for my swap. It measures 52 inches from the real seal of the transmission to the face of the companion flange on the differential. Or if your driveshaft shop measures from center of u-joint to center of u-joint it measures 47 and 1/4 inches(Thanks MachZ!). I had the shaft made with serviceable 1310 u-joints as mine were shot.

As you can see the Z32 slip yoke (right) is much larger than the M30 auto slip yoke (left). The Z32 slip yoke has 30 splines for reference.

So this is where I’m at right now.

I need to figure out what to do with the speedometer, Z32 on top M30 on the bottom. My car is a mechanical speedo, obviously, so I’m looking for a speedo that will work with this transmission. I already tried a Z31 non turbo and its similar, if not the same as the M30 auto. Anyone know if Pathfinders are electric or mechanical? Worse comes to worse, I have to do a cluster swap with a 91-92 M30.

I need to install my clutch and brake pedals, but I don’t know how you guys kept your sanity trying to remove that stupid A/C pipe trying to install the clutch pedal.

How are you guys mounting the clutch pedal on top? I was looking at making a bracket, but still am thinking on how to design it.

I will of course post updates as I am going back to work.