As I'm putting the TKO behind an FE block, I also needed to get the short input
shaft kit and install it on the tranny. I also chose to take advantage to upgrade
to an input shaft concentric hydraulic secondary throw-out bearing. With the
Toploader I had simply used the stock mechanical throw-out fork and bearing, but
had connected the fork to a hydraulic secondary slave cylinder which was then attached
to the frame of the car. While this worked fine (though I did break the shaft on
the slave cylinder once and had to speed shift home), I've always wanted to change
to a concentric throw-out bearing. It was the right time to do it.
This page documents the tranny upgrade.
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First things first - remove the shift boot and shift lever. |
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Here's a "before" picture - the drive train as it has been since the original build. |
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Step 1 - remove the drive shaft - all 13" of it! |
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The tranny crossmember has been removed - I've got it supported by a
regular car scissor jack.
As a side note - I am working from the pit in my garage. I've got the car
positioned such that the jack is right at the edge of the pit |
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I put a steel pipe over the shifter hole in the tranny tunnel and looped
a couple nylon straps around the tranny and around the pipe. I then moved
the car backwards over the pit, removed the bolts holding the tranny to the
bell housing, pulled and lowered the tranny into the pit. |
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With the Toploader removed, one can see the clutch fork, throwout bearing,
and, on the left, the slave secondary cylinder that pulls on the clutch fork.
This is all being replaced by the new input shaft concentric hydraulic throwout
bearing. |
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Just another view of the removal process. |
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Here's the old Toploader (red, on right) and the new Tremec TKO600 (on left).
It's pretty clear the TKO was based on the Toploader - almost all dimensions are
identical - bolt placement, shifter location, length, etc. The TKO has a bit
more hardware up top, relative to the flat top of the Toploader, but there's
plenty of room in the Cobra's tranny tunnel. It's also nice to have the shift
linkage all internal on the TKO as opposed to the external Hurst box on the Toploader. |
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The Toploader has a 10 spline input shaft, whereas the TKO comes with at 26 spline. Hence,
a new clutch plate is required. Also, the standard input shaft on the TKO is too long for
and FE application, so I had to buy the optional FE short input shaft kit. |
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The Toploader - a great tranny - a bit greasy and dirty from 15 years of use, but still
in great shape. This will go up for sale after it's cleaned up. |
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The new Tremec TKO600 as received. |
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Here's a close up view of the old secondary slave cylinder attached between the frame
and a Heim joint mounted on the end of the clutch fork (the Heim joint was added
after the shaft on the first slave cylinder broke; it was simply
mounted to a hole in the clutch fork which did not allow for sufficient movement). |
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Slave cylinder removed..... |
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Just in case I need to remember, there was a return spring attached to the end of the clutch fork. |
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The bell housing (FE stock, along with the clutch fork and throw out bearing) has been removed.
This took quite a bit of work, because the starter
had to be removed first (no pictures, but can be seen behind the flywheel at the right).
Accessing the three bolts holding the starter was an exercise in flexibility and patience.
However, simply taking the time, 1/12 of a turn at at time, and the bolts finally came out
and the starter was free - at least to sit in place because it is tight enough in there that
to truly remove it would likely require pulling the engine. |
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The drive line tunnel at this stage of the removal. I've got a scissor jack supporting
the engine, though it turned out that was superfluous - with the headers and exhaust,
the engine balanced, or at least, supported itself. |
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The clutch and clutch plate have been removed. Although it might not have been necessary, I chose
to replace the pilot bushing as long as I was here. For those who have never removed one of these,
the secret is to use hydraulic pressure... fill the hole in the pilot bushing with grease (any 'ol
grease will do, but pack it in removing all air. For the Ford, the pilot shaft is 0.67" which happens
to be very close to the diameter of a 3/8" drive socket extension. Place the socket extension
into the pilot hole and hit it modestly with a hammer. Some grease will spurt out, but if the fit
between the socket extension and pilot hole is tight enough, a few whacks, along with a few re-packs
of grease, and the pilot bushing will back out. |
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One pilot bushing removed. Clean up and remove all the grease. I hit the flywheel with some
break cleaner to get rid of any excess grease, etc. The removal of the old tranny is complete.
Time to begin re-assembly with the new TKO. |
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Again, the standard input shaft that comes on the TKO is too long for an FE application, so I
ordered the FE short input shaft kit and installed it. Four bolts on the input bearing retainer
and some delicate pull, twist, tip, pull and the input shaft comes out (without losing any of the
seventeen loose roller bearings inside the tranny!). |
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Here is a comparison of the standard TKO input shaft (top, with bearing still in place) vs. the
short input shaft required for the FE application (bottom). I had to pull the bearing off the
original input shaft and re-install it on the FE input shaft. |
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The FE input shaft kit also came with a new (shorter) input bearing retainer. The bearing
race from the original retainer had to come off and moved to the new retainer. The race
was a tight fit into the retainer, but a little grip using a rubber strap wrench pulled it
right out. It just pushed into the new retainer with finger pressure. |
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I borrowed a bearing splitter from Autozone and was able to pull the input bearing off the
standard input shaft. A jerry-rigged bearing insert tool made from PVC pipe allowed me to
press the bearing onto the short input shaft.
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The seventeen roller bearings go around the inside of the back end of the input shaft (where
the red grease shows on the original shaft on the left).
With ample grease, these were set in place in the short input shaft. Once all seventeen
were installed, they tended to hold each other in place. |
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Being very careful not to knock any of the roller bearings out, the short input shaft was
maneuvered into place..... |
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.... and the new bearing retainer was installed. I didn't get any pictures, but I installed
a Tilton 6000-series hydraulic throwout bearing (Tilton 60-6102) on to the front of the tranny before installing
this in the car. Looking on the web, and talking with a couple people at various tranny shops
seemed to indicate this would not work on an FE. The impression was there was not enough distance
between the input shaft bearing retainer and the clutch diaphragm for one of these to fit.
However, I measured the "A" and "B" distances as shown in the throwout bearing installation
instructions, and saw no issues - so I ordered one. It fit just like it is supposed to.
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A new pilot bushing is installed (RAM Pilot Bushing BU50D). |
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A new clutch plate for a 26 spline input shaft was ordered from ClutchMasters (part
#CD04173-00-D). I re-used the old ClutchMasters clutch (07-050-HD00). I also had to pick up a
new alignment tool from Summit (Centerforce Clutch Alignment Tools 50048). |
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The clutch has been installed. |
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The bell housing is back in place. I kept the rubber boot for the clutch fork - the two
hydraulic lines for the new throwout bearing will pass through the boot. Even though the
lines are braided, the boot will help prevent wear. I also re-installed the starter. Again,
it took time, but it actually went on easier than it came off (probably some learning
on my part involved). |
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The next step is the new tranny itself, so in preparation I cut a new hole in the top of the
tranny tunnel for the shift lever. This ended up being bigger than required (the top of the
TKO sat lower than I expected in the tunnel), but the shift boot still covered the hole. |
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With a little muscle I was able to lower the TKO into the pit, then lift it up onto the
floor under the car. |
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I put long studs into the two lower mounting holes in the bellhousing. I then was able to shim
the front/back of the tranny up a bit at at time using 2x4 blocks until it was roughly in line
with the studs, then slid the tranny forward carefully aligning and passing the input shaft
through the clutch plate and into the pilot bushing. I also fed the throwout bearing hydraulic
lines out through the clutch fork boot. Once it was all aligned, the two top mounting bolts were
installed, the studs removed, the bottom two mounting bolts installed, and all bolts sequentially
and incrementally tightened until the tranny was firmly attached to the bell housing.
This shot still has a 2x4 in place for a tranny mount. |
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The new position for the tranny mount did move back 1-2 inches, so I had to trim the cross member
to fit (the tranny tunnel tapers at that point), but the angle brackets on the frame were long
enough to accommodate the move. |
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The TKO came with a new driveshaft yoke. The new configuration required a slightly shorter driveshaft.
I had Midwest Driveshafts rebuild my original driveshaft with the new yoke, shorter length, and while
they were at it, put in new U-joints (the old ones were fine, but since we're here...). After putting
this new driveshaft in I got to thinking I might have been able to get by with the original - I never
checked the old vs. new yoke - the old yoke might have worked just fine in the TKO - something I have
yet to confirm either way. Oh, well - new driveshaft. |
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And here it is - all 12.5" of drive shaft. I did have to take the drive shaft safety hoop out to get
the drive shaft installed. |
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With the drive shaft safety hoop back in place and the speedometer cable installed, we're down to
hydraulics and controls. The pig-tail loop on the back of the tranny is for an electronic speedometer.
I'm not using one of those, so this was capped and taped off. |
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The old (Hurst) shift lever worked fine, so was mounted to the tranny. The boot was shifted an
inch or so and re-installed. Tremec was offering a promotion of a free shift-ball when I bought
my transmission, so I opted for their black ball. Whether I keep this or go back to my wooden
Cobra-insignia shift ball is yet to be determined. |
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As I was already using a hydraulic clutch, I have a Tilton master cylinder for the clutch in place.
For an 11" diaphragm clutch, when using the Tilton-6000 hydraulic throw out bearing, Tilton recommends
a 13/16" bore master cylinder. The one I have in place is 3/4" - the difference is 17%.
Before I went and ordered a new one, I decided to try to make this one work - it seems to be
working fine. But, Tilton also strongly recommends installing a stop to prevent over travel.
This shows my initial attempt at such. |
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Here's the clutch stop I built. It simply attaches to the firewall and has an adjustable lag bolt
that sits behind the arm of the clutch pedal. The first one I made was too long and didn't allow
enough pedal travel, so I had to remove it, cut it and re-weld the box. |
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I threw together a "tool" that allowed me to put incremental pressure onto the clutch while checking
the adjustment. The "tool" attached to my roll bar and had a "foot" to push on the pedal. A turnbuckle
at the top end allowed me to incrementally lengthen the rod and push further on the pedal.
Tilton's instructions are to jack the rear wheels off the ground, put the tranny in first gear,
and push the clutch until one can just turn the wheels. The pedal stop is to be adjusted to allow
1/4" additional movement of the pedal. This turnbuckle arrangement allowed for pretty precise adjustment. |
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Here's the pedal stop after adjustment. At this point I added Tremec's HP Manual Transmission Fluid,
changed the engine oil (that time of year), and fired the beast up. A couple quick trips around the
block (it's still early spring and cold here in Illinois) and all seems to be working well. The
overdrive is just what the Dr. ordered!
The one remaining item is the speedometer drive/driven gears - I guessing the speedo is reading about
20-25% too high. Hence, I've got a little homework to do and some final tuning to do. Note for future
reference: I ended up with a 19 tooth driven gear (pink).
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