Converting a Land Rover Defender from a manual to an automatic transmission

 

One of our regular customers has an outstanding and well cared for Land Rover Defender that his partner was struggling to drive as a manual vehicle. Defenders are always built with a manual gearbox but some people prefer the ease of an automatic gearbox.

 

The client did some of his own research and found a company that builds automatic gearboxes for a manual Defender. We did some of our own research and knew that it was a job that we could take on.

 

We took delivery of the gearbox and started the process of stripping down the Defender. It was a labour intensive job which involved taking out the manual gearbox along with a whole host of associated components. We had to remove part of the interior and wire in the automatic part of the gearbox to the ECU.

 

Depending on the age and the condition of the vehicle, this job usually takes anywhere from 40 to 55 hours, .

 

We fitted the automatic gearbox and new interior panels where the gear stick is normally located. We removed the pedal box and fitted a new brake pedal assembly.

 

The most difficult part of the job was wiring the auto gearbox to the vehicles gearbox ECU. With a huge new wiring loom to fit, it took hours just to complete this task.

 

We filled the new gear box with specific transmission oils and started the vehicle up.

 

We took it for a road test. It was amazingly smooth through the gears without any rattles or shakes. It was absolutely great to drive and felt like a different vehicle. It pulled well through the gears and changed gears with no hestitation.

 

The new interior, where the manual selection gear knob would have been, looked smart and finished the job off nicely.

 

We would be happy to take on more of these conversions. This one took about 36 hours of labour. We suspect that it was relatively quick due to the Defender being in such good condition.