Leaderboard

The Monte. This was a long time ago and it's putting out less now for sure.

I don't believe those have the manual release button. IIRC, there is a mechanical over-ride with the key. In the event of a failure, you turn the key to the "Off" position, which allows you to shift into neutral, then start the car. The 2nd gens respond in a similar manner, however I believe the console shift interlock on those is fully electric, hence the need for the emergency release button.

that's likely what's causing your issues. that solenoid can fail, happened on my 03 GTP. Does it have a neutral release? If it does try pushing it down and see if it will come out of park. that solenoid has a little plastic disc on it that comes out, and pulls a rod that releases the interlock, when you push the emergency park release, its just manually releasing it. not a super bad part to replace if you end up having to, just not sure about finding one.

No shift release and rocking doesn't help.

I can't remember but do 1st gen cars have the shift lock release like 2nd gen cars do? If so you could try that. If not that solenoid might actually be bad. If I recall something about the brake light switch can cause the car to remain in park. I had that issues on my CSC. If the car was parked on an incline I would try rocking the car back and forth a bit then try to get it out of park.

Nothing really. Nothing of that sort is absolutely necessary for a manual swap. All that is necessary is to get rid of the trans stuff so you don't have a constant 6+ error codes and MIL light. Even that isn't really necessary as you can drive fine with no tune changes as long as the PCM is wired to think it's in D at all times. I'm going to leave fueling and timing up to a ZZP remote tune once I switch over to E85, no sense in messing with it now. Other than that, I think the F23 speed sensor is slightly off from the 4T65E as it would read 70 when I was going 73-74, so I adjusted that to match GPS speed. On a side note, I have been looking into extending the clutch master cylinder rod about 1" behind the clutch pedal as the pedal hits the firewall before it's fully pressed, so it might only be 90% released each time which I hope isn't causing extra wear.

Actually its been holding up great. I've got over 20k miles on the swap now over 2 years. Nothing major, a couple ripped cv boots which may be because they were junkyard sourced. I highly recommend adding a HTOB spacer. ZZP sells them for around $50. Sits behind the HTOB and moves it closer to the clutch by 1/4" for earlier engagement and longer life. Aside from engineering the trans mount, the hardest part is getting the clutch pedal mounted and situated. The pedal arm needs to be cut & welded into proper position as well. As far as the mount, the low-profile mount I fabbed up works great. Only modification I made was adding rubber bushings under the nuts at the bottom to further insulate the mount from the frame. On an aluminum subframe, it might have to be done a bit different. Might be able to drill two holes and bolt it in the same way, but I haven't been hands-on with an 04+ subframe so I can't say for sure. I'm not a fan of the modified 4T65E bracket method that requires tubular control arms as the mount sits outside the frame. An extra $650 that could be spent elsewhere. There really are half a dozen ways you could fab up a mount but I can say for sure the one I made does the job. 3/16 steel plate holds up well so far. I have also just finished taking the time to document the changes to the tune that are highly recommended for a manual swap: Idle speeds in-gear changed to match P/N as its going to be wired to be in D at all times now. ( I actually added a toggle switch to change between forcing it in D or P, since P is needed for a crank relearn procedure if you need it) DTC codes changed And finally zeroing out all the auto trans stuff: