As a general estimate, how much am I normally looking at to convert my ED to a manual gearbox?

as much as a manual donor car will cost. plus some graized knuckles

Is there any specific type of gearbox I should be looking at buying or are they all the same?? (car newb here)

preety sure they are the same from EB series2 to EL
somebody may confirm tho.

I'm pretty sure the gearboxes from EA-EL all bolt up the same, but the EA-EB1 boxes have a different first or second gear ratio. Also they have what has been described as a "roofing nail head" along one side toward the shifter, this is suppused to be an indicator to an early box.
Not that it matters majorly, I have an ED box and I'm still enjoying it..

A good tip though, reinforce your pedal box and firewall while it is all apart, especially if you want to go a heavy duty clutch.. I did.. Why not? Nothing spastic, just one step up from standard, it feels the same on the foot, but gets the power through a lot stronger, price one up compared to standard clutch and you probably find the difference minimal..

Check out my build thread for pics of the reinforcement on the firewall and pedal box..

thanks heaps lowlane, I wont be doing it myself as I know very little about engines and don't have the time nor the right friends to learn from however I'll make note of what you've said and see if I can't incorporate it in to the conversion some how.

The best option for the pedals conversion part of it is to use a Mal Wood pedal pin fitted to Auto pedal box - and then fit an extension shaft to the threaded tail of the Mal Wood pin and brace that extension against the adjacent shaft - simply using packers and hose clamps is sufficient. Show this text to your mechanic and I'm sure they'll understand what I mean.

A Mal Wood pin was $80 back in 2000 and I picked up a complete brand new Auto pedal box for $30 - you'd be lucky to get a new one for that price but there should be any number of cheap ones from wreckers - and of course the cheapest way is to use your existing one. For gearbox, bellhousing and all the bits you should budget at least $800 - more realistically $1000 - and then labour for installation will be something in the order of 4 or 5 hours.

To make my extension piece I simply welded a nut that had the same thread as the Mal Wood pin onto the end of a piece of steel tube - there was enough threaded section for it to attach to. The original nut could even be welded to an extension and if the proper diameter tube is used so it rests comfortably against the adjacent shaft then packers wouldn't be necessary either - I was doing it quickly and in-situ so didn't want to bugger with detaching the pin etc.

As far as the brake pedal goes you can either cut down the auto pedal or replace it with a manual pedal - swapping the pedal and arm is an easy job for a mechanic.

The "proper" manual pedal box is physically the same as an auto one except they weld a pin into the hole that's otherwise left open on the auto pedal box - and that welded in pin is the c rappiest thing you ever saw - using the nice beefy Mal Wood one is the go - and with an extension and braced the way I've described, it'll load properly along the sidewall of the box, not bend itself over and split everything. It would still be best to also have the box sidewall reinforced tho.

For my firewall, I cut the spiggot out (it was already cracked almost right round) and used inside and outside plates, a section of threaded tube as a spiggot, nuts for each side and angled spacers to give it the same angle as the original spiggot.

Your other alternative of course is to just put a hi stall converter into your auto.... I wish that's what I'd done in my ED - it's the way I went in the EF and I love it (tho I do also have a cam - not sure if a hi stall will do much for a car with std cam? ). My TCI converter cost about $350 off eBay and fitting was $450 by the local auto trans workshop - tho I already had a trans cooler - so one of those should be added to cost for a car that hasn't got one.

Thanks Greenmachine, I don't have my own local mechanic whom I have a good rep with yet as I have moved, so I cant really ask them to do anything special for me. On that note, if anyone knows of good mechanics in Perth I can go to, preferably around the stirling area, who are actually passionate about their job and don't see every car as just another money maker, I'd love to know about them.

Yes - unfortunately finding decent Mechanics amongst all the mekanix out there is difficult RANT ALERT!!!

Things I've had mekanix do over the years - ie. 1996 to present:
* Superpro camber/caster kits fitted ar se about (they are front and rear - one is softer material than the other and disintegrates if the wrong way round as I found out after calling Whiteline).
* Cam gear bolt broke - I was the last one to fit it after doing head gasket - but mekanix had fitted the cam a few months previously. I DID notice it felt a little odd when torquing it up but I didn't have alot of experience with coa rse thread bolts of that size so didn't realise it was evidently cracked.
* After repairs for above - in a different town and by different mekanix to the ones who had done the cam work that I believe was responsible for the overstressed cam gear bolt - I popped the rocker cover off just to have a look and was shocked to discover cam chain about to let go due to link clip evidently having been put on wrong or backward and flicked off - joiner link pins were just flush with the adjacent chain links and it was amazingly lucky that particular part of the chain was on top when I removed the cover!!!
* Some years later I realised the rocker gear oil supply check valve wasn't working right so had mekanix fit a new one - which involved taking off timing cover etc. so I got them to do the whole timing set change as well - got car back not idling right at all: "that cam isn't real good for idle mate and it doesn't even go real good" - was idling fine and going like a rocket when I left it with them - got it home and checked it out - sure enough cam was one tooth out - and also found the whole threaded section of the tensioner retainer had been gooped with blue max when it was assembled (the f ecking thing has an o ring under the head...). Spent ages carefully cleaning it all off the retainer and out of the threads in the housing. Luckily I DIDN'T have any lifters bugger up from bits of silastic going thru.
* Got the power steering system serviced - ie. flushed and magnetic inline filter fitted etc. - 2 days later very early on mothers day morning whilst picking up some croisants for my wife the steering suddenly became heavy as I arrived at the bakery - could smell fluid - hose clamps loose...
* Several years AFTER the loose hoses incident again had the power steering serviced - they also fitted new low px (return) hose - a week later out in the back of woop woop suddenly had the road behind disappear in white smoke - OMIGODIVEBLOWNTHEENGINE - that new hose had peeled itself open partway along it's length and sprayed fluid all over the extractors - lucky we didn't BURN!
* Most recently: had bad running dramas with the EF - ended up breaking down completely in Repco car park so had it towed to nearby mekanix. they reckoned their analyser narrowed the problem to the coilpack - so I had a new one of those fitted along with new leads and plugs. Couple of days later it started playing up again - same problem as original. I was already a bit sus of the Head gasket so went ahead with doing that and when I got the Inlet manifold off I found one lead not pushed on properly at the coilpack....

* And the one that takes the cake: I bought my 1993 ED Futura in 1996 - it was IMMACULATE with almost no km on it - but within the first two days of driving it away from the caryard it nearly killed me twice by stalling in the middle of heavy traffic - once in a very busy and dangerous intersection. I popped the bonnet and poked about with the engine running and discovered touching the large EFI connector near back of the manifold caused it to quit. So I undid the connector, cleaned it out with contact cleaner, hit it with a bit of NC123 and put it back together and it didn't miss a beat for years. Later met the guy who had owned the car from new before me - it was in such good nick because it had spent almost all it's life at the Ford dealer while they tried to fix the stalling problem - ALMOST 2 YEARS! - until he got fed up and traded it - then I came along and took it. Ford mekanix spent nearly 2 years and couldn't fix it - yet I found and fixed it in 10 minutes...

I have to honestly say that 4 out of 5 times I've had work done there have been stuffups of some sort - once even had a dent put in the bonnet because of a rack of 3/8 drive sockets being left on one of the towers. Didn't even score ok as they were cheap s hit.

Rant over

I agree with you green machine. No good quality pride driven workmanship anymore. Just want the car out the door to collect the cash. They put down others work though.

Don't worry i have had my fair share of dodgy operators. The unfornate thing is the customer always pays

always