Now connecting the trans oil cooler lines. I went back to NAPA and bought some high temp, high pressure, oil resistant rubber 1/2 inch rubber hose. It's rated at 500 PSI. It should be good. I plan on double clamping all the lines.

Since the cats make it a tight squeeze under the engine. I ran the cooler metal lines above the clutch slave cylinder.


I removed the factory heat shielding and tucked the lines in between the body and the trans.


Factory heat shielding reinstalled and covers the rubber lines by the cats.


I made a bracket to hold the metal lines to the motor bracket by the oil pan. I lost the original one if there even was one. This is a terrible picture but it's to the upper right corner of the picture holding the 2 lines up. It's also a repeat of a picture I used earlier. Sorry!



Here is the bracket.

 

The fire up has been done!!! She started!!! No grinds and loud bangs! haha!!

I first couldn't get it into gear. I pumped the clutch a few times and the pedal got harder to push and the clutch opened up. Then I could shift into all the gears while it was running. There must be some air left in the clutch hydraulics.

Installed the shifter, shifter boot/gaiter from a D2 manual trans. I had to stretch it over the shifter housing bas but it works.


I connected the XYZ switch from the autobox. I turned the little dial hole in the middle to show P on the dash. This let me take the key in and out. When I turned the dial to say N on the dash all the servos unlocked in the transfer case. Oh yeah!! So I left it in P for the start.


Now it has finally moved from it's rest place for the past 6 months. What a relief!!! The driveway needs a little scrubbing now.

 

Next step was to start clean up the open hole where the new shifter is. I reused the original auto shifter plate. Since it holds the transfer case shifter and the old auto shifter lever. I used a sharpie and drew around the opening I need and used a cut off wheel to make clearance for the manual shifter.


Here's the shape of the cut out. It's kind of a weird shift pattern since the shifter coming out the trans has a bend in it.


Here's the plate back in the truck. It clears the shifter and the transfer case shifter can bolt back on. Plus I fed the XYZ switch wiring harness thru the plate. I tucked the XYZ switch and wiring with the window wires temporarily.


The center plate was originally pop riveted from the bottom of the body. Now it's going to be mounted on top of the body. The thru holes are about 1/4 in diameter. I'm going to find a permanent clip on type nut. I scrapped off the foam seal and drilled out the remaining pop rivets. I put a couple screws in for test driving.

 

I have driven the truck for about 100 miles. The heavy clutch takes a little getting use to. But shifts smooth. Drives are 70 MPH nice and smooth. No more torque converter vibrations I couldn't figure what the problem was.

Now the bad news about doing the swap. There will be errors on your dash. Which no one doing this swap should be surprised. The check engine light is on. The M and S lights are flashing on and off the whole time. The auto shifter P stays on. The rest of the N, D, etc... will blink if you turn the center dial in the XYZ switch.


Here are the codes for the check engine light:
P1612


P0722


All these errors "should" be solved if the body control unit (BCU) is switched from auto trans to manual trans. I found a guy locally that has Nanocom software. We'll see how it goes!!

 

This whole thread makes me inordinately happy, from start to finish. I know I'll never do anything remotely this adventurous but I'm overjoyed to know that there's someone out there who is. Well researched, well documented, well photographed. Congratulations!

 

Can you re-program the computer to know there is a manual transmission in there?

 

Yes. That's what this bit means: "All these errors 'should' be solved if the body control unit (BCU) is switched from auto trans to manual trans. I found a guy locally that has Nanocom software. We'll see how it goes!!"

 

Thank you for the kind words. I was wondering if anyone was reading it. But the information will be here forever for anyone who wants to dive in to the adventure!!

The biggest part to help with this swap was having another car to drive while I work on the Rover. The Rover is my daily driver but I drove my vintage car as a daily driver until the Rover was done.

 

I've driven the truck for about 500 miles so far. Here's my initial reviews. Averaged about 15mpg with a mix of highway and town driving.

The gearing is really low. Some flat or downhill stop signs can be pulled out in 2nd gear easily. From a dead stop at a light in 1st gear it takes off. The V8 revs up so smooth and powerful. Out on the highway at 70mph it's running at 2500rpm. So it's the same as the autobox on the highway. If you want to pass someone on the highway. Just give it a little gas and you're around them.

The clutch grabs really strong. It's perfect. No slipping at all. I've noticed the clutch pedals needs to be let out slowly for smooth shifts. The first few days the clutch hydraulics seem to keep getting air in the lines. I didn't bleed it but I pumped the clutch pedal about 5 times and the clutch pedal would stiffen up and open just fine. I've driven 4cyl sticks for years. I can say this V8 clutch pedal is harder to push in. But still easy to drive.

I went to a local Rover guy to work on the computer. He has a Nanocom. I'm not sure which version. We found the Body Control Unit (BCU) area to change the BCU from an Auto to Manual transmission. So we changed and saved the changes. This turned off the flashing M and S off the dash. Beside the odometer it turned off the P. So the BCU is now set to manual. The truck starts without the XYZ switch attached and the cruise control works.

The BCU and Engine Computer Unit (ECU) are different but they talk to each other. Now the ECU is trying to talk to the BCU for the autobox information. Now the BCU is no longer sending out autobox information. The ECU needs changed to a manual transmission. So this means I may have to go back to the Rover guy and mess with the ECU settings and see if I can switch to manual.

The BCU isn't telling the ECU the XYZ switch is attached. So I'm getting P0705 code, No PRND switch attached.


P1612 Land Rover code. This is the internal controls inside the trans.


P0758 BCU not telling the ECU any information.

 

I've logged about 1500 miles on the swap. Still running great but still have the same 3 codes listed above. So I decided to take out the autobox ECU. It's found under the drives seat. The autobox ECU and stereo AMP are mounted to the same plate. I took the plastic cover off the bottom of the seat to get access and removed both with the plate. I took the auto ECU out and put the AMP back in.

I turned the key with no auto ECU. BOOM!!! The check engine light came out! Awesome news.... Until!! I started it up and the check engine light came back on.

I pulled the code reader out and the code is P0600 lost communication with transmission. Which is OK.. So far. The best part is my emission light turned from red to yellow. I'll continue driving it and see what happens next.