I was doing some searching myself and on car-part I find 540 transmissions going for 4-600 bucks, and 545/550 trans for the N62s from 600-1000.

I started looking into a 4.6 or a 4.8, and 4.8s are not that much more expensive over a 4.6. I wonder if this conversion would be almost as straight-forward for the facelifted trucks..

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8/06 build E53 3.0i....