Am just north of Ft Worth, TX and thinking of swapping my ‘96 E4OD to a manual 5 speed.

Prefer to have the whole donor truck; 4x4, four door, short bed prefered.

All suggestions are welcomed!

For what it is worth, I have a near-complete '94 front D60 front end and two rear 10.25" rear ends, all in 4.10 ratio as an offer in trade.

 

I did my 97. Bought a 93 with a locked up 7.3 idi for for 800. Took what I needed off of it, sold it for 400, and then sold my e40d for another 400. Pretty much broke even. Only thing that I had to do was gey my rear drive shafy lengthened since my truck was a extended cab long bed and the donor truck was a regular cab long bed. Piece of cake. Everything bolts right in.

 

Green_95, thanks! How tedious was changing the clutch pedal support and related linkages?

I’ll keep an eye open for local donor trucks.

 

This isn't a bad project and you're going about it in the right way by looking for a complete donor truck. Piecing the project together one part at a time can be tedious, but with a donor truck, it can be done over a weekend if you have a plan and a couple buddies to help you. It's not a bad project at all.

Working in the cab is a bit uncomfortable, but do yourself a favor and take the extra 10 minutes to pull the front seat out of the truck. It makes working under the dash a LOT easier and you'll likely need it out of the way anyway to change out the pan on the center hump to the manual pan with the hole for the shifter. Drop the steering column out of it first as well, as you'll want to change that out to the manual column for a nice clean swap anyway. With the column and seat out of the way, the pedals aren't a bad job at all.

 

the clutch pedal assembly was a bit tedious to install but not bad. I'm rather flexable, so that helped to. I laid on my back in the floor board with my dad holding a flashlight for me to see..lol it was a mess and a awkward position to be in. I didn't swap out the steering columns. I didn't see any reason to. I just removed the gear selector of the column. Only way you would know my truck started life as a auto is the prnd321 on the cluster. Everything else was a super clean swap over. I took some extra time and made sure I cut the carpet for the shifter and floor pan just right, so it wasn't jacked up.

 

Glad the swap went well for you. The only other difference between the auto and manual columns is the key release mechanism (you have to release it manually to remove the key).

I have a feeling many of the key cylinders are worn enough at this point that you can slide the key right out of them without the release anyway. I know mine is...even with the truck running.

You can bet that freaked the kids out the first time they realized I was driving the truck without the keys in the cylinder!

 

I enjoyed the swap. Have to get in an assembly line mentality and see the components that were for the other option. 3/8 impact is your friend. 4 bolts and the whole pedal box or steering column comes right out. Don't loose the clutch linkage bushing!

I preferred to change the cluster, column and the harnesses (clutch and trans). I also swapped pcms. Front driveline from the donor is a must. I shortened the rear driveline from the donor because my wheelbase was a tad shorter.

Get the trans cross member from the zf5 and may need to remove front cab bolts to get the cross member bolts started.

Having the parts truck right there is very nice and provides many spare bolts, carpet template etc.