$600 2005 MANUAL SWAP

[chappy1028]

Hello Everyone,

I am new here to the Taurus Forums.

November of 2024 I bought an 05 Taurus for $600 to use as a work beater. Although it was fairly clean, the transmission was going out. On the test drive, my gut told me it was a valve body issue. The owner of a transmission shop told me to try LubeGard. It worked.

I got 30k miles out of her before the transmission started going out right at 1 year of ownership.

I WANT TO MANUAL SWAP IT.

April 2025 I dropped the Engine/transmission to fix an exhaust leak. While everything was out, I did a full AC rebuild, struts, lower control arms, ball joints, gaskets, wheel bearing, CV axle, radiator, transmission cooler/lines...

Long story short, I am at the crossroads with this car. Almost every item I replaced had to be replaced twice because the part was defective out of the box. This is not the easiest car to work on, so it has been a love/hate relationship. If it wasnt a clean, well optioned 4th gen... it would be gone already.

I have about 3k of parts invested. Countless hours. But I don't regret it. This car brought back my love for wrenching.

I found someone local to rebuild my transmission for $1000.

I know people have manual swapped these but from what I understand it's best to use a mazda transmission but the cv axles have to be custom?

After spending hours researching my "next beater"...I am willing to drop another 3k into this pile.

I have the money, time & skill.

Any Input is greatly appreciated.

 

[Devin]

Leave it to a Taurus to rekindle the love of wrenching!

My question: why a Duratech? I feel if you have the skills and cash to do a manual conversion you could stick a more fun engine in there while you are at it.

 

[chappy1028]

Leave it to a Taurus to rekindle the love of wrenching!

My question: why a Duratech? I feel if you have the skills and cash to do a manual conversion you could stick a more fun engine in there while you are at it.

Owning a town car for 10 years made me lazy lol

I actually really like the duratec. I had a 96 taurus with the vulcan. What a boring gutless POS. I know it's reliable & proven etc etc
But the duratec is a much better engine.

Maybe eventually I'd like to do a 4.6 from a continental. It's a very easy swap.

 

[chappy1028]

Noone here has any updated info on a manual swap?

I know it has been done. I searched the forums & alot of the info is from years ago.

 

[luigisho]

A lot less owners with a lot less inclination to do this sort of stuff on those models currently. You may find some additional knowledge on the facebook SHO and/or Taurus groups

 

[Texas Marauder]

Noone here has any updated info on a manual swap?

I know it has been done. I searched the forums & alot of the info is from years ago.

There was a recently manual swapped Gen 3 wagon with a V8 SHO engine at the last SHO convention. I think most people don't want to invest the time and money on a 20-25 year old car.