E30 325i Manual to Switchable Auto swap

[Kas123]

Hi guys,

Need some help with a transmission swap. Tried doing some searches to get information on how to do a transmission swap from Manual to Switchable Auto but having no luck on guides/videos etc.

Can anyone help, the gearboxes from both cars are out but the connectors on the manual car are not matching up with the switchable auto box so at a bit of a crossroads.

It’s looking like the entire wiring loom would need to be removed from the manual car and swapped with the switchable auto wiring loom but can anybody advise if it can be done without doing this/or if there’s an alternative easier solution?

Cheers.

[twenty]

Hi,
I had a look at this recently, but from a different angle - to switch from my non electronic auto transmission to the electronic switchable one. My conclusion was that even for auto to auto switch this was going to be daunting. The switchable transmission requires hooking up with the engine wiring loom for the ECU for example and I couldn't really tell if the existing wiring loom was up to the task. Plus, these switchable boxes are 35+ years old now - imagine you do all the work and then find nothing works. What do you do?

[Kas123]

Successfully completed this - turns out you have to swap the engine wiring loom in addition to the ecu in the boot for the switchable autos - the auto box also has a connection to the radiator for cooling purposes so that also needs swapping, there’s also connections that run to the back of the Speedo that have to be swapped - it’s a very fiddly task and I honestly wouldn’t recommend it ‍