Not a cougar but Gems Qashqai, gearbox swap, if you ever get offered the chance to do a 4x4 gearbox swap on a Nissan Qashqai... run... run for your life... run for your sanity and run far far away. If you are a muppet that decides to have a go I have 1 piece of advice... Run... run for your life... run for your sanity and run far far away.
The main reason (by far not the only reason but the main reason) is because the 4x4 system is designed by Renault
The Gearbox weighs in at a uncomfortable on your arm 105kgs
it looks easy enough to drop out of the car through the overly gaping hole in the subframe - it does not fit through this hole
the Gearbox is almost the same size as the Duratec V6 engine
The drivers side drive shaft is well documented at becoming 1 with the support bracket
the support bracket has 10 bolts that become brittle 2 minutes after fitting them and will require drilling out the remains and recapping the holes ready for reassembly.
the passenger side drive shaft is held in place inside the gearbox by an oversize circlip. This circlip has to be at the 2:30 clock position to enable the drive shaft to be persuaded out of the gearbox.
It took me a weekend to remove the gearbox on my drive
i fitted a new clutch kit and now just need to put the hubs back on the car and the wheels
but seriously not a nice job by any stretch of the imagination but it saved £1100 doing it myself so worth the aggro I guess