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Manual shifter setup on AW4

bigwalton

bigwalton

Alaskan Postal nutjob
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Dexter
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MI
I swapped a 4.0/AW4 setup in my postal and one of the main reasons was to be able to use a manual shifter setup to control the tranny when on the trails/dunes.

I've ordered the rail shifter from http://radesignsproducts.com, which has gotten great reviews on NAXJA.com and Pirate4x4.com. Going to get my switches today so I'm ready to wire this in when it shows up.

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With this shifter, you can manually control all shifting with no input from the tranny control unit (TCU), I'm setting it up to be switch controlled to have stock auto or complete manual, read on for details:

Here's the wiring (not entirely accurate/consistent in terms of what is connected where on the 3PDT switch) --courtesy of http://radesignsproducts.com/aboutus.aspx-- that I'm going to use. This way you can just use the stock shifter with completely normal operation (in D and selection of all other gears with the 3 and 2/1 positions of the shifter) or flip a switch with the shifter in D and control shifting ENTIRELY with the rail shifter. AW4s have a 1/2 position stock, the TCU shifts when RPMs are right, you can't make it stay in 1 or start in 2 and the shift is somewhat violent. This is the real reason to do something like this for me.

The stock setup is shown at the bottom, basically there's three wires of importance to the shifting process, two control wires for the shift servos and one for the torque converter lockup. They go straight to the tranny from the TCU.

With the rail shifter you can completely replace the TCU, but I don't want that as I drive mine on the street so much. If you use a three pole, double throw switch (3PDT), you can select to have the stock shifter/TCU connected to the tranny or the rail shifter. (a 3PDT connects either of two sources from the end terminals to one output in the middle terminals). All you do is identify the correct three wires from the TCU, cut them and run the TCU to one end of the switch, the tranny wires in the middle and the rail shifter wires to the other end.

AW4shifterwiring-1.jpg


When in manual mode, the torque converter lockup is controlled by a single pole dual throw switch that simply gives power to the tranny when turned on. I know the lockup helps efficiency at cruising speed in overdrive, but I don't actually know what use that will serve on the trails... I'll set it up, probably with a switch that lights up on a separate LED when on for easy indication.

Can't wait to get this all set up! :smokin:
 
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Should have the shifter Monday or Tues. I'm having trouble finding a 3PDT switch though... don't want to pay to have one sad little switch shipped and I want it by the time the shifter gets here... trying another place tomorrow. This is annoying!
 
So this afternoon, I'm sitting at the mall with Laura at the playground and who calls me but Rory, the guy who makes the shifters! :eek:

He saw the post and called to talk to me about an alternative way to wire it so that I don't need the 3PDT switch that I was having trouble finding. That's what I'd call customer service!

He suggested a double pole, double throw (DPDT) switch for the tranny shifting and a SPDT for the torque converter lockup since the only thing that HAS to be kept together is the shifting. DPDT and SPDT switches are everywhere. This suggestion was on his website as an alternative, I just overlooked it because I assumed I'd be able to find the right switch fairly easily :banghead:

Here's how it would be wired:

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Using the SPDT switch for the torque converter allows it to be TCU controlled, off, or on.

That got me thinking about when I'd need to ever manually lock the torque converter and I asked about just leaving the TC connected to the TCU at all times so that it locks up when the TCU thinks it should. That would eliminate a switch and be one less thing for me to think about. He wasn't sure if the TCU would still lock it up when the shifting was done manually. I figure I can test it out and see.

Anyone have any thoughts on why I'd want to lock up the TC manually over when the TCU would do it automatically? Seems like the TCU would do a fine job (assuming that it's able to lock it up when shifting is switched to manual).
 
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Would locking up the converter manually help with compression braking?
 
Randyzzz said:
Would locking up the converter manually help with compression braking?
Click to expand...
Rory brought that up when I asked, but he also said that it didn't seem to be any problem to get compression braking before using the rail shifter. I certainly didn't have any problem with the old 999 setup (once I got it geared correctly).
 
Just got in from tonight's action and I now have the rail shifter mounted and working to control the sifting. :smokin: Nothing beats 1AM test drives in rain with no top :D

Here's what I got. There was a deal for the mounting plate for free, it bolts to the side of the unit with four longer screws that replace the four that hold the two sides of the case together. I would have had to fab a plate as there's no mounting holes or anything in the shifter case itself. I highly recommend getting the mounting plate.

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This is the plate I "fabbed" (cut with an angle grinder) to mount the shifter off of the rollbar just in front of the steering wheel. I didn't want to be welding anything around the joint of the rollbar, so I made the plate fit well outside that joint and attach farther up and down the A pillar.
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This shows the other side of the plate. I had to weld a bolt inside a hole in the plate at the top to make a stud to mount the shifter because there was no clearance on the A pillar on the back when I had the plate rotated where I wanted it. It also shows my crap welds (my welder was really too small to do this plate on the rollbar tube and I have almost no welding experience yet ;))
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This is to show where it is in relation to the wheel. It's a really easy reach with the right hand and is at a very comfortable angle. It's easy to wrap my hand around the body of the shifter/mounting plate to hold on while shifting gears.
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I left the TC lockup connected to the TCU (didn't wire any switches into that circuit) and it works fine in 4th at cruising speed when shifting manually. I didn't check for compression braking.

One issue is that I couldn't seem to get the normal control back without turning off the engine. Emailed Rory on that. No big deal if that's the normal situation given the way I plan to use it.

I know I need pics, I took some, but it's late as crap. I love where I managed to mount the shifter. EXTREMELY convenient and very easily controlled. Wiring is temporary for now, didn't want to committ to drilling holes for the switch(es) until I knew for certain that I would need/not need the TC lockup switch. But for my "temporary" it turned out pretty well. :thumbsup:
 
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Ok, compression braking is done with the stock shifter. Shift into 1-2 or 3 (regardless of what the rail shifter is in), depending on speed, and it compression brakes. So you can't get compression braking with the rail shifter, just gear changes. Pop it back in D when you're ready to go and shifting is controlled by the rail shifter again.

Found out that D is the only shifter position that has issues when switching back from manual to auto, 1-2 or 3 works as normal, but I get very little movement in D as if a clutch was slipping really badly. Not a big deal to turn it off when ready to go back to auto--especially when I get more used to shifting manually ;)
 
Found out the hard way today that the tranny solenoids will pull power when the ignition is turned off...

I used an unswitched 12V source from the PDC when I installed it and when I parked it on Thurs. night I left the auto/manual switch in manual, so the solenoid pulled power and killed my battery by this morning. :banghead:

In other news, I don't think that it's locking up the torque converter when I'm cruising anymore in manual mode. It definitely did it in my first test drives...
 
I should say that it's just COOL to be able to shift manually... I have an annoying drone in the exhaust setup I went with in the 4.0 swap and with the auto shifter, it gets into the droning range all the time. With the manual shifter, it's easy to keep it out of that range.

Here's a pic of it at the dunes in action for the first wheeling trip :thumbsup:

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Hey Eric (@bigwalton) . My set up come in the mail today. Looking forward to installing this. Since I suck at wiring, I may need to hit you up. And this is really old so your pics are gone. Grrr. Wish me luck.

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