Convert manualgearbox to auto operation without removing gearbox

Speak to companies that do conversions for disabled drivers... they do this sorta stuff.

Talking to a mate that has done the conversion to auto, if it comes out of a diesel going into a diesel, its a straight swap.... if it comes out of petrol into diesel, its not as much fun.

hey willem,
The company that does most of the work for the disabled drivers is PARRAQUAD INDUSTRIES and they can fit or fabricate anything to make life easier but from memory you need a referal from your doctor. They are worth while calling as they would no of any thing new or wiz bang on the market and as most of the employees are disabled they have a vested interest in the technology.
No i do not work for them i use to be a supplier to the NSW section and have always been amazed at the work they do
Hope this helps
Pmacks

Willem,

You been doing too many gear changes on those trips of yours? :-)

Willem, I did this about twenty years ago on a mates car and it was fairly crude. He was injured in an accident and we set it up to do him for a couple of weeks while he recovered. we discovered afterwards that he used if for about two years.
I'm not sure how it would go off road, but reckon if it was installed properly it would be allright.
We used a "throw out" solanoid off a starter motor to operate the clutch, connected through a relay to a pushbutton on the top of the gearstick. Fitting it was trickey as we had to make up a couple of brackets and get it in the right place to throw out far enough. Mind you we did all this in a night with a slab of cans under our belt.
Might work for you, and is a cheap option if you know someone who is handy with a welder.

Mick

I used to go out with an amputee a while ago. She used to change gears in my old Hilux without the clutch! She had a real knack of sliding them in smoothly, adjusting the engine revs to match, but the starts and stops were a bit scary!
Her father made a clutch lever for an old car that was on the gear shift. She handled this quite well too, but bought an auto when she got a well paying job.

G'day Willem
I know that this is a little late but I used to do those sort of conversions years ago in NZ for para's when auto's were really thin on the ground and extremely expensive. I used to convert the clutch throw out to an hydraulic slave cylinder, ifn it wasn't already , then used a VH 40 remote brake booster connected to the slave cylinder to operate the clutch throwout. A starter solenoid connected to the input side of the master cylinder then had enough power to operate even the heaviest of clutchs. The solenoid was operated from a switch on the top of the gear lever, just a simple push button that disengaged the clutch as soon as you put your hand on it. Also, sometimes , depending on the usage I used to incorporate a flow control constrictor to regulate how fast the the clutch engaged, good for start ups . All this work can be done with the average tools in most 4x4 owners sheds. Hope this can be of some help

Dennis