Has anyone put a t56(or other manual) in a Chevy 1500 that had an auto? We have an 04 Chevrolet 1500 Extended cab. It has a center console, not a bench seat. We don't mind getting rid of the cup holders, so that isn't an issue. We can also get rid of the sub under the console.

The goal:
Manual transmission
Keep 4wd and keep electronic transfer case(not necessarily keep the one we have just keep it electric for the buttons)
Keep the center console

Can anyone point us in the right direction for doing this? Has it been done?

 

It's been done on a 2WD several times. I dont know if its been done on a 4x4. A guy over on silveradoss.com and I spoke about it a year or so ago that had done it to a 2WD SS and retained the center console. He owned some type of performance shop I think. He said it could be done on an awd and that he could do it. It wouldnt be cheap though. His name was kellyperformance over there. He ended up swapping back to an auto because he had more issues with the manual clutch going out than he did blowing up a 4L65E behind his radix supercharged truck. He said because of the weight of the truck and the power output of the engine, he couldnt get a clutch ( I guess he tried 5 or 6 different ones ) to hold past maybe a half dozen launches or WOT runs, if that. Now, Regular cab trucks are lighter and imposterss over there at sss.com has a 6spd in his truck (it was originally a 5spd manual) and he doesnt seem to have any issues.

If your real goal is to jsut have a manual and retain 4x4, the 5spd 4x4 out of a regular cab would be a pretty straight forward swap as even the extended cabs have the necessary mounting areas that just need to be tapped to hang all the hardware. But those 5spds probably wont hold much power to speak of.