Kirkham Motorsports Assembly Manual

David Kirkham · #4 (**permalink**) 07-03-2007, 08:23 PM

Now it is time to give the motor the one over and make sure everything is OK. We always check the parallelism of the harmonic balancer pulley to the water pump pulley and we found this one was a little bit off. See the cool tool we use to make sure everything is in line? Peter Brock showed me that trick years ago. He told me they were loosing belts during races until someone figured out why.

David Kirkham · #5 (**permalink**) 07-03-2007, 09:53 PM

Well, as you can see, my guys are putting the car together faster than I can type and comment. I can see I am going to have to probably do this over 2 cars. We are building an identical one to this one right now. It is in sanding right now. Hey, that gives me an idea...maybe I should do this for sanding and polishing a car as well.

Here is the engine in the car.

David Kirkham · #6 (**permalink**) 07-19-2007, 06:52 PM

Finally a few minutes to get back to the assembly manual! Lots of sales this week. Mostly from overseas.

Everyone likes to put the Tremec 5 speed in today. It is WAY better than the top-loader 4 speed transmission. I really don't like to drive the 4 speed cars any more.

To use the Tremec transmission, you MUST change the input shaft to the shorter shaft. Many transmission shops can do this for you...but WHY? When you can have all the fun yourself and convince your wife you NEED to buy MORE TOOLS!!!

So, you have to do a few things to be able to use your brand new TKO 600 tranny. We will start with the input shaft. It is the hardest thing to do and I always start with the hard things first. Kinda like when I start a new Chopin piece on the piano...I alway start with the "Presto con Fuoco"

That way when I am tired I can do the easy stuff.

The first area to address is the input shaft. So, how do I change the input shaft on my Tremec TKO 600 transmission?

Just grab a cold one and I will give you the step by step procedure.

First, take off the input shaft snout. You will need a 1/2 socket for this.

David Kirkham · #7 (**permalink**) 07-19-2007, 07:04 PM

When you get all the bolts out, GENTLY pull the snout off. If you pull it too forcefully, who knows what all will come out with it--like the input shaft and its accompanying needle bearings. The input shaft is only held into the transmission by the snout and it can fall out right now onto your dirty floor that you forgot to clean up.

Bearings are just like peanut butter sandwiches...the peanut butter ALWAYS falls peanut butter face DOWN and bearings always stop rolling (under the bench) in the biggest pile of dirt and shavings they can find. But you can always think on the bright side--if you get junk in your bearing then you will get ANOTHER opportunity to read my manual as you pull out your transmission to change the input bearing from early failure

Be careful!

David Kirkham · #8 (**permalink**) 07-19-2007, 07:06 PM

Now put your freshly removed collar on the table next to your new, shorter collar. Remember, you want to put the SHORTER input shaft back in so keep them straight! This is one instance where shorter is better.

David Kirkham · #9 (**permalink**) 07-19-2007, 07:10 PM

BE CAREFUL!!! There are shims in there! We will be using them shortly!