TKO 600 Grinding.

[bret a ewing]

Originally Posted by Excaliber

It's only reverse that drags, the synchro's are masking the proble............................................

Changing over to a bearing, from a bushing, is a good approach in this case and it appears that has now been done.

Just a TKO related FYI:

I had a brand new, less than 100 miles, TKO 600 that was problematic with reverse, had to select 5th at the very least almost every time.
On the grid at VIR the car in front of me could not get started, so I grabbed for reverse and SNAP! Broke the linkage like a dry twig.
Done for the weekend.........
What we found under inspection was the 5-rev linkage, (looks like a connecting rod) is made out of junk white metal. This may not normally be an issue but the neutral allignment was off, causing a engagement issue.
Sent the trans back, they sent me a new trans which I had blueprinted to exacting specifications, my Tremec guy said this trans was assembled in Mexico and many just like it are "sloppy" mine was no different.
Oh BTW he first had to sent back a cracked housing (at the input shaft) probably happened during shipping, after that he did his magic........so far so good.
If I ever have another problem with this thing, in goes a Kees alumin case WR toploader, end of story.

[lal Naja]

Sorry to hear of your hellish problem. As we all seem to agree that a spinning input shaft would cause this grinding. And now you've aligned everything you should be good to go. I read that clutch plate gap should be a minimum of 0.100" for the TKO to make absolute no possibile clutch plate spin. So if this is your final setup and you get gear crunch then you still have rotation of your input shaft with clutch disengaged. So what else can cause the shaft to spin? This is a shot tn the dark. But what about crankshaft end play? Say you measured every thing and you have 0.005" between the bearing and the spline and you have 0.010" of crank end play. With a situation like this a few thousands of movement of the crank and some expansion of components due to heat you end up with the shaft being driven by a great deal of friction. Not enough to move the car or the wheels, but enough to keep the shaft in rotation?. Arthur

[bret a ewing]

In my example, this never became an issue until the trans warmed up.

[jhv48]

Ok, here we are at the 1000 mile mark.

Trans shifts smoothly into reverse when cold but is starting to catch a few teeth when hot. And yes, I always shift into a forward gear or two before engaging reverse.

First gear will OCCASIONALLY, resist going into first gear when hot. Hasn't done that for 1000 miles.

Clutch feels good, but I'm going to adjust a mm or two and see if conditions improve.

Hope this isn't the beginning of the next chapter of clutch problems!

[jhv48]

As a follow up. After about 1500 miles the grinding returned. Pulled the trams and examined the throwout bearing. The center section that rides on the trans bearing retainer was scored. After removal, we found a small burr on the retainer shaft where the throwout bearing rode. We surmise that the burr was scoring the t/o bearing causing it to drag just enough for the clutch to fail to completely disengage the trans.
Polished the retainer and no problems for the last 4000 miles.

[lovehamr]

Thanks for following up Jim, would've never thought of that.

Steve