Colt Vista "84-"90 Manual Transmission swap Info.

[mitsubishikid]

Hi everyone on here, Okay I get asked every so often how did I swap my 1st generation 1987 Fwd Plymouth Colt vista wagon from auto transmission to 5 speed manual, I decided to share my wealth of information on the subject here, hopefully it will help other people out there that want to do this swap on their vista, since these cars are often times not talked about much, so this sort of info should help you out, most of the parts I will show in the swap are no longer available from us dealers, but you might get lucky at local wrecking yards... or maybe you will custom make what you need, even so I want to document the swap, so lets move on.

So you got tired of a slush box 3 or 4 speed km series trans, and you want to have a manual transmission setup, well there is a few options for vista owners, as far as transmission swaps go, so I'm going to list them.

Options
Cable or hydraulic?

Option 1: you get a cable operated clutch manual transmission available in both 4 and 5 speed configuration, these can be had from a 1.5 4G15 Mitsubishi mirage/Dodge [or Plymouth] colt/ Eagle summit advantages to using this setup is basically you wont have to waste time bleeding the system, and it's more easily reversible [if for some reason you want an auto trans setup again you never know] downsides well less cars had this style transmission, less pedal feel, more strength needed to push a performance clutch in, and it's not as strong as the fwd turbo transmission which are of the hydraulic actuated variety.

option 1: is what I ended up doing initially, for many reasons [which we will get into later] but I currently am in the process of going with option 2: Image below is my 1g turbo transmission example, I have it stored away for right now [I took this image before and after the cleaning got most of the grime off of it] .

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Option 2: use the more common hydraulic actuated transmission[as seen in the above image], the advantage to using this style are, you can use the stronger turbo transmissions [which were used in the fwd dsms], the pedal feel is said to be better then the cable style, heavy duty clutches are easier to depress then with a cable setup, plus you generally will have more cars to snag a transmission from [since most of the Mitsubishi fwd transmissions were hydraulically actuated] on the downside it's a little bit harder to swap it all in, but well worth it to some.

[these 2 options will change how to go about the swap, but I'll list why soon]

As for the shifter base and assembly, I was fortunate to find a good used oem vista cable style shifter assembly, don't get the rod style shifter assembly [as seen on the carburetor equipped vistas] they are not as easy to install, and will limit what transmissions you can use in the swap.

I will be adding images and scans, to better detail the information.

 

[mitsubishikid]

The Images below: are to show the two different types of clutch pedals you can source for doing the manual transmission swap, depending on which style clutch system you intend to use, the pedal on the left is out of a 1984-1987 carburetor equipped colt vista with the cable style clutch [to my knowledge all of the 1987-1990 EFI equiped manual transmission colt vistas had the hydraulic operated clutch system].
The pedal on the right, in the image below, is out of a 1987-1990 Fwd Colt vista and it is of the hydraulic variety notice the differences.

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I sourced the pedal on the right a while back, but at the time I had no intentions of swapping in a hydraulic setup back then, but now I got almost all the things to do this, and the dash is out for some wiring repairs anyway, so I figured now would be the best time to do the swap. the pedal cover on the right pedal is brand new got it from an auto parts store it's the doorman brand, part number 20723, it barely fits, but I like it.

 

[mitsubishikid]

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The clutch pedal uses an e clip, and a spacer[washer] to secure it to the upper assembly bracket, which will be bolted to the firewall.
I used brake grease, for all the pedal assembly joints.

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I had to clean all these parts, many of them were in my garage collecting dust... and you guessed it rust, so I wire wheeled all the parts, and then spray can coated them with rust stop from dupli, and then lastly I painted them with flat black paint to keep an oem look to them still have some more parts to clean so more updates soon.