Transmission & slave cylinder

[MaSnaka]

I have the FE 390 and I recently installed the TKO600 in place of my toploader. I also switched from the HTOB to an external slave. A couple comments of observation. I made no mods to the TKO except a shorter shaft. The short shaft for the Ford was back ordered for a long time...months. So I ended up with the Chevy short shaft and had a turned down pilot bearing to accept it. I kept my Lakewood bellhousing. The tranny fit right in place and even kept the same shifter location. The shift action between gears is much more precise, it kinda snaps into the gates where as the toploader you needed some patience and had to find the gears when downshifting- up shifting the tl was quick and smooth and seemed to have more character overall. No issues with TKO 2nd-3rd.

The difficulty we ran into was converting to the external slave as there is very limited space between the bell and frame. The fork had to be shortened and we had to find the right amount of travel ratios with the new slave and then the master so the pedal wasn't so stiff. Its all good now but it took a few tries before it all came together.

I was using the McLeod HTOB. I had one completely fail, the new one started to loose it's seal so I had it rebuilt with a new seal kit. It was working fine when I removed it. It was probably 3 years old in total.

I have a thermal sleeve on all the hydraulic lines and a heat shield between the headers and the master clutch and brake cylinders.

5th gear is a freeway cruiser...1-4 are the fun gears.

Fortes was my source for parts. It went relatively well but there was some frustration in communication involved. I would recommend but know what you need...I didn't know and ended up with things I could not use and it made no $$ sense to ship back.

John