Sometimes when you want to change a filed type you have no choice but to create a new field, migrate the data to the new field and then delete the old field. There are ways to bulk upload data into existing records and/or use script and scheduling to migrate the data, but in your case I think it will be easier to just create a new field based upon the new form you created with the records for each of the manufactures name and then using the search and bulk edit features in view, simply set the values of the new field to that of the old field. After you do that, you can delete the old field. When you try to delete it you will fail if there is any script using that old field...don't worry...print screen the failure message and use that as a list of what script you need to edit so that it points to the new field instead of the old. When you finally get all the script updated, the delete action on the old field will succeed. Have fun...this really won't take more than 20-30 minutes.
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