After having the car for a few months tranny took a dump on me which meant 1)Sell the car (for basically nothing) 2)Deal with the hassle of a part-out 3)Drop in another TIP tranny (uhhhh no) 4)Do some research and swap it out for a 5 speed. I already have everything ordered and I will update with pics as things arrive. I am using biketsais' guide for the most part mixed with a little commmon sense. His guide is A+ and I will attempt to supplement it a bit.

With biketsai's help I was able to find out that my rear diff (4.11 gearing) needed to be swapped out in favor of the 3.89 (from a 5 speed). You should do this at the same time as the tranny since everything is already out of the way (exhaust/driveshaft etc). You will also need a driveshaft from a 5 speed. While I don't know 100% if it is necessary to swap the diff it's better to be safe than sorry.

Everything I have is coming from a 99.5 with low miles. I'll post a list of everything I purchased and from where later on. I will also post up the steps I took (starting with dropping the diff and driveshaft AKA d/s). The dropping of the exhaust is pretty straight forward (so if you can't handle that aspect I would reconsider doing this swap)

For know here are a couple of pics of what has come in so far.

Brand new 5 speed axles (front) I dont think rears are necessary-correct me if I'm wrong.



Diff and d/s



More to come soon......

Sweet - definitely a thread to keep up and build.

Thanks I can't wait to get it done!

List of things I have for the swap (still waiting to be shipped in):

5 speed tranny (brackets/mounts/slave/clutch line)
CMC
S4 Pedal set (DBW)
Shifter box/trim/linkage
(Above purchased from audis4parts)
rear diff
driveshaft
(above purchased from Gtek in Naples FL)
Pilot Bearing from
(www.zorkos.com PN#A-6941)
5 speed front axles
(Advance lIfetime warranty)
Clutch Masters FX400 W/LWFW
delrin jhm shifter bushing
(ringer-racing)
Rear main seal

Have some other goodies too

Can't wait to watch this thread, I've started to slowly collect pieces in hope of doing this late summer/early fall

Unplug your battery kind of important lol



Started off droppping the exhaust like I said pretty self-explanatory.

heres a pic (very heavy piece)



Next with a 12pt triple square tool I unbolte the front axles (I ripped the CV boot being dumb). Also removed the heat shield as seen in pic



With the exhaust out of the way things should look like this. Remove the heat shield shown in these pics to gain access to the driveshaft.





For this step I would recommend a friend (if you don't have any be prepared for a lot of back and forth). Use the ebrake to stop the DS from spinning on you when getting the bolts off
(be VERY careful not to strip these out!!)

After unbolting the D/S from both the tranny and diff I still wasnt able to pull it out so decided to just pull it when i got the diff off.

I then moved to the rear axles. Took them off like the front in order to get the diff out (careful here also)



At this time place a jack under the diff



There are a few mounts holding this bad boy in here are a few pics (I think I got all of them pictured)






This mount will leak when you loosen it so be ready for that



Making sure that the diff is still on the jack start taking out these three bolts (carrier)



Then lower it out (SLOWLY)



You should be here



Here it is. This is what happened because the driveshaft didn't (and still doesn't) want to accept it's divorce from the diff



Next you will want to take the downpipe off so that you can get to the tranny to engine bolts
(messy I know) to get here you will need to take out your airbox and move some things around but its pretty straight forward. Also I unplugged my O2 sensors you may want to take them off of the piping up to you.



(O2 plugs are on the drivers side on the firewall follow them from the sensors themselves)



The patient




Dropping the tranny this weekend

definitely glad you decided to do this, car is beautiful, and to continue watching this process will be awesome to see.

GREAT job so far!

Thanks! The main reason behind the swap was that this car is sooooo clean (01.5) that it would be a shame to part it out or junk it. More updates coming soon.

from what i see, i definitely agree!

please keep on with the pics and being this detailed. I'm not retarded when it comes to cars but i get nervous when it comes to things i haven't touched yet and i'm about to do the same thing!