I'm guessing it's been about a year now, but I did a full 6spd conversion on my 740iL and sold my automatic transmission to a customer who's auto had failed....roughly 8hrs later (removal of mine, removal of his, installation of his) and he was back on the road again. About 4 years before that I swapped the engine out in my 7 as well. Just yesterday I did another VC change on a customers car, took about an hour or so. VC's are pretty straight forward though, you're going to hate life when you have to do the valley pan gasket It does get easier w/ experience though Honestly, once you're in there and taking things apart while looking at the pics on www.e38.org, you'll be able to make it work...have faith!

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