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CVT to 6 speed aisan transmission swap

49K views 45 replies 16 participants last post by  R.S.LOGAN 
#1 ·
I have two cars with the cvt, both are bad, after seeing how expensive to rebuild or replace I did a swap, I am posting on how my swap went and what is needed, 2006 ford five hundred AWD, I took a aisan 6 speed from a 2005 ford five hundred fwd from salvage yard, to do swap you need the flywheel, both drive axles, all transmission mounts( 2 underneath and one under hood) shift cable, and the transmission wiring plug from a FWD five hundred, I was told I needed to change the PCM also, currently I have 350 miles on car since swap I haven't changed the PCM yet but I have the traction control light and ABS light on, It cost me $420 so far, for a used cvt they wanted $2300
 
#4 ·
when you rewired the 500 transmission pig tale to the freestyle, how did you wire it up. 500 pig tale had 2 black wires and 1 black n white and 4 others. others. and the freestyle had 1 black wire and 2 black n white .. yes they are color coded. but when you have 2 wires that are the same color . how did wire those in. call me if you like thnx bill 567-207-5676
 
#6 ·
hello. i got my aisin tranny put in my freestyle.i got it wired up. but i have a problem. ,,the little wrench is on and the check engine light comes on . but not throwing any codes. i put a brand new throttle body in . that did not fix it.but it still goes into limp mode. not all the time,when your in driving down the road. the cruise control kicks off after about 20 seconds. the motor does rev up about 200 rpms then idles down.. im just stumped on what to do next. do you have any suggestions. on what to do next besides take to a dealer.. the trans mission does once in awhile kick into gear hard when first putting from park to reverse or drive..
 
#13 ·
before i changed the tranny, it was in limp mode all the time.the code was a p0701.which is the tranny code plus other things.i checked the fluid then,it was full. so i got on computer and did some digging and found that there was always a problem with the throttle body. i cleaned it, still same symptoms. the motor does rev up when in park. but not in gear. so i bought a brand new tbs. then relearned it. and it still did the same thing.nothing changed so then i changed the tranny to the aisian 6 speed.i can drive it now after the tranny swap. but not very far. goes into limp mode and the lights come on. and then the tranny clunks once in awhile when putting into gear..its either bad tranny again or is it something else.im in the process now of changing the wiring harness..from the 500 to the freestyle
 
#16 ·
put in new engine wiring harness .. it didnt work. motor kept stalling and running rough.. so took back out. put old one back in and motor purrs like it should. so im stumped on this transmission thing,, last thing to do is put another tranny in and then go from there..after i take it to a shop that has a better scanner..
 
#17 ·
got freestyle going,tore wiring harness apart from 500..and found out that one of the black wires is not connected to anything. , i unhooked it from the freestyle wiring and put on a new tranny plug in and bam it started ran good and took down the hiway. all is good.but now the check engine lite is on and throwing a u0073 code. which is a nothing code . but the pcm may need reflashed or replaced,...on the 500 tranny plug there is 2 black wires,but one of the black wires is taped to the white wire, the white wire is a can + wire and the black wire taped to it is the can - wire. after all this time and 900$ later i think i figured it out, thanks to all with all there input.i did not hook the other black wire up.i just taped it off..
 
#20 ·
Yes. The tcm is built into the mechatronics(valve body) of the cvt. And on the 6 speed it's bolted to the top near the Trans range sensor. The wiring from the car essentially provides powers,grounds and module communications. The only issue I had was an abs light after the swap. The PCM didn't care because it only sent Trans info and received fault info from Trans. For abs light I forced module programming from a 6 speed 500 vin number.
 
#25 ·
to get the abs and the trc light to go off. i pulled the instrument cluster and dissambled it .(mark the posistion of the mph needle or your mph will be off) took mother board off the back. then hooked it back up to the wires. to make sure i clipped the right bulbs. then unplugged it again, took my big toe nail clippers and clipped the little bulbs.(there about as big as a piece of rice) put all back together. and works fine..i checked my speed of the freestyle with my gps to make sure i set the needle correctly.. all works great now. and no lights on
 
#26 ·
Your abs and traction lights are probably in because it sees the difference in VIN numbers. Weather you used the 6 speed PCM or not the abs picks up vin info from the TCM also. Forcing PMI to make PCM TCM and ABS the same VIN will make all systems functional. It worked on the one I did. Car is in the road with no warning lights.
 
#45 ·
Hello, I’ve got a couple questions about a ford 500 that I think you might be able to answer if you wouldn’t mind. I recently bought a 2006 ford 500 fwd with the cvt. The car didn’t run so when I finally got it started the transmission made a whining noise in park and neutral. I’ve come to the conclusion it’s a bad cvt and decided the cheapest route is to swap the 6 speed auto in instead of another cvt. My question is do I need the axles as well if it’s fwd to fwd, or was that only for awd to fwd. thank you for your time!
 
#27 ·
“Your abs and traction lights are probably in because it sees the difference in VIN numbers. Weather you used the 6 speed PCM or not the abs picks up vin info from the TCM also. Forcing PMI to make PCM TCM and ABS the same VIN will make all systems functional. It worked on the one I did. Car is in the road with no warning lights.”
r-clar, that’s great info. Best I have found searching around.

In a previous post, you said,
“For abs light I forced module programming from a 6 speed 500 vin number.”
My question is, how do I do this? What tools/software/hardware do I need?

Or what do I need to tell someone with the capability? I’m assuming I can find someone locally that has the proper tool/scanner/software that can accomplish it, but what do I need to tell them to do?

Thanks for any insight you can share here.
 
#28 ·
How I Fixed the Traction Control and ABS Lights Issue

I did the swap and had the Traction Control and ABS lights on as everyone else did. I didn’t want to snip the lights off of the instrument panel.

I read over R-Clar’s comments about having the right VIN flashed everywhere. He suspected the following all had to be the same: PCM, TCU, and ABS. I’m not 100% sure of the equipment and software involved to be able to do the flashing (Ford IDS (integrated diagnostic system)), but from past queries on how to do it, it is cost prohibitive unless you can justify it in some way.

For my swap, I bought a donor Five Hundred from an insurance auto auction that had been totaled. So, I had all of the guts in one spot. Since the Five Hundred had 65k miles less than my Freestyle, I wanted the engine and all. I dropped the drivetrain cradle as a whole, changed out the shocks/struts (they are different between the two cars), and installed into the Freestyle. And I changed out the shift cable and shift console. And then ran into the lights issue.

I then took the brains off of the ABS module (you can do this without opening up the brake lines) and swapped that into the Freestyle. Swapped the PCM over, then swapped the ignition switch (because of the PATS module). Tested it out, and it worked with NO LIGHTS!

Just a couple of additional notes. Changing out just the ABS module won’t do it…I tried that first before changing the PCM. I did not need to modify the wiring harness for the transmission because I had the harness from the Five Hundred attached to the engine cradle. I swapped the key lock cylinder in the door between the two so I only need one key. And, on a totally different subject, our keypad keyless entry on the Freestyle was not working hardly at all. It took very hard presses, and that was only working occasionally. I lifted the keypad from the Five Hundred and installed it on the Freestyle. I didn’t know if the code would stay the same, but I suspected that it was stored in some remote opening control module and NOT associated with the specific keypad. Sure enough, the Five Hundred keypad works to open the door with the original Freestyle keypad code.

Also, I used rockauto dot com as a great information source to see what parts were shared between the two cars. You can do a query for a specific part for each car and see quickly if they are the same part number or not. That is how I verified the shocks/struts were different.

So, here is my unofficial “parts required list” that is a compilation of previous posters and my own experience. This would assume you do not want to do the VIN flashing required to shut off the traction control and ABS lights. Please reply with anything that I have missed or got wrong, and I will edit the post:

Aisin 6 speed transmission with TCU
Transmission wiring plug
All transmission mounts (2 underneath and 1 under the hood)
Flywheel
Shift cable
Center shift console
CV Shafts
PCM from the same car
ABS control module from the same car
Ignition switch w/PATS module and key from the same car
If desired, door lock cylinder from the same car so you have the same key for door and ignition
 
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