• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

5 speed conversion

Share this page

healeyboz

healeyboz

Jedi Knight
Offline
Okay,

I am seriously thinking about taking the plunge. Especially if I have to yank the motor and transmission again to fix this bearing problem. I have a few questions for those that are in the know....

1. What is the best conversion out there?

2. What price should I be able to complete the conversion for?

3. Who are good and reasonable sources for everything that is needed?

4. What all is needed for the conversion?

5. Anything else?
 
Barry,

Without a doubt the best conversion available for the Spridget is the Rivergate kit.

1. What is the best conversion out there? Rivergate https://www.rivergate5speed.com/rivergate.html

2. What price should I be able to complete the conversion for? if you buy the deluxe kit, what I did, and find a trans for a reasonable price, say $200, you could easily have it done for around $1100

3. Who are good and reasonable sources for everything that is needed? easiest wat to find the correct trans is to scour your local salvage yards or do a search on www.car-parts.com

4. What all is needed for the conversion? once you have the conversion kit and the slave kit upgrade, I reccomend, and a trans, you have everything you need.

5. Anything else? The thing is a little bit of a bear to do. Not all that hard really but doing it by myself sucked and would have been much easier with a helper....Rear trans mount can be kind of a pill. Now that I think about it I have no idea why I tried to do it alone!

Lots of folks on this board have done this conversion and ALL rave about it, completely transforms your car into something much more pleasant to live with and the performance increase from better ratios, synchros, and a real 5th gear has to be experienced.

Hope this helped

Jay
 
Barry-The Datsun 210 transmissions are becoming harder to come by, and as such the price is being driven high. I've called around here in Georgia and have yet to source one. They pop up on Ebay and prices on there have been running in the $800 range.
 
I talked to a guy today. He has a toyota celica transmission with an adaptor from Australia. Anyone have experience with this one?
 
https://www.conversioncomp.co.nz/products.php?which=54&return=18

I beleive this is it, a conversion using the KA 5 speed out of a starlet.

Can't tell you how strong a Starlet trans is but it certailnly is not a celica Trans, a RWD celica would have a T-50 or larger Toyota box and those do NOT fit the spridget without cutting the crossmember. Something you don't want to do, although I have done it to mine to install the 4AGE Silvertop connected to it.
 
That answers my question. Thank you. Time to look more towards the 210. There aren't any mods to make to the chassis with this one..right?
 
No mods to the chasis, just bolt and play.
Or rather, bolt, wiggle, fight, swear and play if you do it on your own.
Rear transmission mountings were a bear for me, but if you get the whole kit as Jay mentioned, it's easy enough that I could do it.
One thing I didn't do, that I wished I had, is lighten that flywheel.
 
Barry ,

did you call that guy in LasVegas with the engine and trans for sale on craigslist?. Bet he'd be willing to unbolt that trans and send it to you.


Jay
 
The other Datsun conversion kit to look at is the MorrisService kit. That was the way I was going to go initially -- it uses the same transmission as the Rivergate one. Only reason I didn't is that I decided to stick to a 4-speed.
 
I went down to my favorite yard in Tucson last week to look for a 210 g/b for another Westfield builder. I poked around for a bit and was able to find 3 of them with 68k, 85k and 104k mileage. The guy wants $200 for one and I have to remove it myself, he will pull the car out of the weeds and put it on stande for me to work on. I am tempted to make an offer for all 3 and see what he says. Anyone in AZ want to help me remove some trannys?
 
Along this line, does anyone have an extra 210 driveshaft yoke? I've got the transmission but it came without the all-important yoke that must be welded to the spridget driveshaft.
The final missing link in the power train for the Morris pickup I'm building.

Thanks,
Glen Byrns
 
It comes with the rivergate kit. Just remove the tranny half from your drive shaft install the new Ujiont and your on yourway
 
I don't have the Rivergate kit. I've always stuck by the Paul Asgeirsson kit and love the one in my bugeye. This time though, I have assembled the bits independently over the last two years and lack only the yoke and haven't seen on at the wrecker in the last year. I've got a backplate and an extra Datsun clutch. I plan on drilling the flywheel myself. Since its for a Morris truck, I won't be needing or using any sort of slave cylinder kit. I'll be fabricating a mechanical linkage to accomodate the Morris linkage.

For what its worth, the Morrisservice kit allows the use of the full Datsun clutch. For a built up 1275, this is the way to go. Stronger clutch all around and doesn't require some special one-supplier clutch disc. Paul may be down physically for now, but I'd still throw him my business any time.

Glen
 
Baz, which setup do you have? Datsun? Rivergate or Morris? Or Toyota?

Jay,
I haven't called him yet. Man, I wish I had your luck with finding them. I have tried for awhile now--trying to figure out how much it was going to set me back.

Now I'm just trying to figure out which combination I need to go with.

(Or which one I will be able to sell my better half on.)
 
Back
Top