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Automatic to manual help

Magikal

Magikal

1/2 ton status
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Posts
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Location
North Idaho
Currently have a 7.4l vortec from a 1997 gmc truck with a 4l80e. Any thinking of ditching the automatic and going to a manual. I have a sm465 laying around. What all is gonna be involved in this? Is this a practical swap?
 
465 241 would be the shit on 40s and 4 56. I loved my truck on 40s. It wheeled very well. I just had 2:1 though. It would only be better with the 2.72.

All kinds of shit changes but it's worth it imo for wheeling. Hydro clutch is the only way to go for flexy frames. The pedals make that expensive but you can keep you current column. You might not have to change driveshafts but id plan on it.

241/205 doubler? 203/241? Aw yeah
 
I agree on the hydro clutch, Its real nice for wheeling. Lots of guys like an auto for wheeling but if you are a manual guy go with the hydro clutch. I did the swap, the pedals and bellhousing are a bit hard to find so they cost more than they should. The rest of the stuff is all available new for good prices..
 
Guess I am more concerned with mating the tranny to the engine. Bell housing, pilot bearing, etc.
 
Use all factory parts for an 87 and I believe you'll be just fine. Nv4500 and sm465 share many dimensions inside the bell housing.
 
The older 454's were externally balanced,--don't know if a '97 would be that way too or not--the flywheel for the older 454's had a balance weight cast into the flywheel..if yours is externally balanced,you'll need the special flywheel for it..
 
eodcoduto said:
I paid $300 for my hydroboost pedals, they are difficult to locate.
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Me too. I think the bellhousing was $150 + shipping.

Magikal said:
Guess I am more concerned with mating the tranny to the engine. Bell housing, pilot bearing, etc.
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I bought all LUK brand stuff, flywheel, clutch, fork, pilot bearing, slave and master. Not because I think they are better, but I could get all the parts from 1 brand that way. I figured I had the best chance of the parts working together as they are supposed to on the first try that way.
 
Mating to the engine will be easy. 1986+ square-body parts for the Bell housing and hydraulic clutch setup. If your SM465 is new enough to use a long-nose 6-bolt round adapter it is probably the standardized length. If so, you should be able to keep your old driveshafts from your 4L80. If it has the short adapter height, you may be able to keep your existing 4L80 crossmember. Otherwise you'll need a lower cross member to clear the taller mount (flat style vs. the W- or S-shaped cross member you're probably using now).

As for pilot bearing, buy a flywheel and bearing for your model of 454, and buy a clutch kit for the 1986+ square body. The input shaft will have a 0.51" pilot diameter and 10 splines regardless of whether you look up a 1979 clutch or a 1997 clutch set. But you need to make sure your pressure plate and throwout bearing match. This is probably the easiest thing to mess up, and you can wind up with a clutch linkage that can't fully engage or disengage the clutch. Mine was close enough that I made a longer rod for the slave cylinder and it works perfectly (though the arm is kinda close to bottoming out against the bell housing). But it took some investigating to figure out why it wouldn't work when first assembled.

It's a practical swap if you don't need overdrive. Swapping pedal clusters is the hardest part. Finding stock hydro pedals is the second hardest part. I did an NV4500 conversion using SM465 bell & clutch, and I'm now wrapping up an NV3500 swap. I like the NV4500 more than the old 465. If your gearing is now correct for a 4L80 I would stick with an overdrive transmission. But that's just me. Also, redoing driveshafts would be a deal breaker for me. I like my stick shift, but I'm not going to redo my whole drivetrain just so I can downgrade from 4 gears to 3.5 gears. The 5 speed is worth the hunt.
 
Given how scarce hydraulic pedal sets are, I would probably buy a standalone clutch master & pedal setup from Wilwood or some equivalent. Just match the bore diameter and it should mate well with the stock slave cylinder.

You can also buy a hydraulic slave retrofit kit from Novak Adapt that will add a hydro slave mount to a normal mechanical SM465 bell housing. It's a non-stock slave, but it is a lot easier than finding a true hydro donor rig. Sounds like you already have a mechanical bell housing on your SM465?
 
Fastereddie said:
What about his ecm? Won’t it be unhappy?
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There is a small chance he might need to get a tune on the computer to delete the auto tranny ECM settings, but I doubt it. Currently in my V3500 with an 8.1/NV4500 swap, the ECM for my 8.1 is a stock tune right now set with an auto tranny behind it (even my harness has the auto tranny connections still in it that I just zip tied up for the time being), and it runs just fine. However, my ECM is the newer P59 LS style computer they used on 8.1's...I know the L29 Vortec 454 ECM's are a bit different, so not sure if they will work the same.

I echo what @campfire said...pretty easy to mate the tranny to that motor. Flywheel and pilot bearing for your year 454, clutch pack and everything else for 86+ square body truck. Tranny will bolt to the motor just fine.

Does your truck have hydro-boost brakes or vacuum brakes? With the hydro manual pedals, there is a difference depending on the brakes. Both versions are somewhat scarce to find as already mentioned, but hydro-boost is more scarce. But you can make a vacuum brake pedal setup work with a hydro-boost pretty easily. I can't remember off hand what I paid for my pedals, but it didn't really take me long to find a set either. There are parts all over if you are willing to pay shipping
 
I wouldn't worry too much about grabbing a set with the wrong brake pedal. Doing the auto-to-manual swap it's super easy to cut down the pedal you already have so it matches the stock setup.

Manual vacuum pedal on the left, automatic hydroboost pedal on the right. You can see the tab I cut off the original pedal at the bottom.

imgp7335-jpg.174052
 
D.C. area transmission rebuilder?
eodcoduto said:
We will see later on this week, I'll recoup some of this by selling my NV4500 swap setup an some spare parts I have laying around.
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Might check this out
 
campfire said:
I wouldn't worry too much about grabbing a set with the wrong brake pedal. Doing the auto-to-manual swap it's super easy to cut down the pedal you already have so it matches the stock setup.

Manual vacuum pedal on the left, automatic hydroboost pedal on the right. You can see the tab I cut off the original pedal at the bottom.

imgp7335-jpg.174052
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was going to do, until I realized when I started to swap the pedals on mine that I actually found a hydro-boost manual pedal assembly...I was pretty happy about that :saweet:
 
Ok. Rounded up my sm465 and it's from the 70's era. Figure 8 mounting. Mechanical bell housing.
My k5 doesn't see highway at all. Not worried about drive lines. Will fab my crossmember as needed.
 
Magikal said:
Ok. Rounded up my sm465 and it's from the 70's era. Figure 8 mounting. Mechanical bell housing.
My k5 doesn't see highway at all. Not worried about drive lines. Will fab my crossmember as needed.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you'll be fine. I'd just grab the Novak kit and keep your existing bell housing. Unless you find a good hydro donor truck.
 
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