Hello, long time viewer, first time caller. For starters, I am doing a manual swap on my 06 2.4l Le5 Cobalt with the 4t45e trans to the f23 trans. This is not me asking for help. This is a write-up of what I'm doing. I bought a donor 06 2.4 with a blown motor and pulled the needed parts from that.

Parts pulled from donor car:

• f23 trans
• Axles
• Shifter cable
• Shifter base
• Slave cylinder
• Various clutch lines
• Engine harness
• Fuse-box
• Bcm
• Ecu
• Clutch pedal assembly

What I bought brand new:

• All OTTP f23 mounts
• OTTP engine mount
• OTTP short throw shifter, bushings, lower bracket
• Clutch
• Radiator
• Master cylinder
• Various clutch lines
• Interior trim bits
• ARP flywheel bolts

Both lists will be updated as I continue the swap over the next couple days.
I will strictly be covering my install and swap in this section, not what I went through to pull parts (but I will in comments if specifically asked).

Day 1:
1. Jack the car up and be sure to give yourself enough clearance to be able to pull auto transmission out from underneath as well as installing f23.
2. Pull wheels, unbolt axles. I am running aftermarket outer bushings so mine are bolted in, from factory they are riveted (I believe is the word) in, I unbolted my control arms from the outer bushing and left them attached to my sub-frame.
3. Unbolt steering rack from sub-frame. 2 bolts, 18mm I believe. Same as sub-frame.
4. Drain radiator, remove fan and shroud (2 plugs for fan), disconnect upper and lower hoses and unscrew the 2 trans coolant lines goings into radiator.
5. Remove radiator.
6. Unbolt the 4 sub-frame bolts (18mm), pulled the sub-frame off with arms still attached and set to side.
7. Once this was done I installed my OTTP engine mount, bolted to engine but just sitting on threads on rail. Removed my driver seat (gray/black lnf seat in my case), auto shifter assembly and set my OTTP solid bushings on mount studs. Did mock-up with my OTTP short throw shifter cause I wanted to pretend it was already a manual. It was fun before the realization that a **** ton more work is needed.
8. Remove your starter two 15mm bolts hold to block/trans, two 13mm bolts for G/P wires and one 8mm bolt for another.
9. Auto transmissions have a torque convertor bolted to flywheel, 3 bolts, don't remember size off top of my head. Use a 22mm? socket on crank pully and rotate flywheel to remove the tq converter bolts. These bolts can be removed from the top of the engine bay if you remove the intake, I went through the bottom. Just easier in my world I guess.

Day 2 Goals:
Remove transmission, install flywheel bolts and clutch, install master cylinder, slave cylinder, clutch pedal, bcm, shift cables, couple other odds and ends. Today is Tuesday. In a perfect world balt will be driving on Saturday with the new manual trans... But we will see. I still need to pull the factory tune on the donor ECU so my tuner can put my modified tune on it. I have been taking pictures, but I will upload them upon completion of the swap.

As I said previously, I am actively doing this now, if there is a problem with me updating this walk-through as I go then I will remove it and post it at the end. If I'm misremembering bolt sizes or someone has insight on a better way to do stuff than I do it post it up. I have 2 functioning brain cells and that's being generous.

Thank you everyone.

 

Sounds like you got all your basis covered. I actually know a guy local to me that did this swap basically with a 2.2 auto cobalt and converted it to a lsj sedan. He had a complete donor cobalt ss/sc that was wrecked and completely did the swap over to the 2.2 sedan. So exactly what you're doing including lsj engine, trans, ecm, wire harness etc complete swap over. Took him a full year I believe to do it since he was doing it all on his own and not a shop doing it. Here is his YouTube channel

 

Right on. Im eventually going turbo but to do so i needed the manual yah know? I finished my swap in 4 days. Once I finish getting the list of all the parts i pulled and bought I will update this thread with how the rest of the swap went. Balt is driving amazingly.

 

That's awesome brotha glad you got it going. Right now I'm in the process of restoring my 07 Pontiac G5 GT sedan and doing a m62 supercharger swap. I've already did full suspension mods, new stainless fuel lines, new fuel pump. I'm also going to add stainless brake lines. Should have it all done by the end of summer. I've working on it slowly over the past 3 years.