Finally gonna do it; TopLoader 4 speed to TKO-600 swap!

[69timemachine]

A little news. I finished my third member rebuild and install of the 4.56 gears and Eaton TrueTrac last week. I removed my clutch and pressure plate in order to reinstall my bellhousing for dial indicating over last weekend. It turns out my bell is .011" off of crank centerline, so I had to order some .014" offset dowel pins from http://www.robbmcperformance.com/products/dowels.html on Sunday. I'm hoping they will be here Wednesday the 3rd so that I can possibly install the tranny on Friday the 5th. I installed my 1310 C6 yoke onto my driveshaft the other day, so that is ready for installation. So far, there's no big surprises. I'll post some pics of the final product and a write-up of any mods or surprises once I get it finished.

[BlueovalFE]

Jason, I talked to Brent at B2 Motorsports again about the TKO and the shift position problems and he told me nothing has changed, the closest shift point would still place the shifter under the bench seat. I'd sure like to compare notes with you. Looking forward to your write up and photos.

[69timemachine]

With the rear shifter mounted in the rear position, it will probably be under the front edge of the seat (with it all the way back).

With the rear shifter set in the front position (as I will be running mine), the only time there may be interference is if the seat is all the way forward. I can't confirm this interference just yet since I don't have mine together yet, but I can say that the TKO has a much shorter throw than the TL. That shorter throw may prevent interference. That is the beauty of the TKO, that it has so much shifter flexibility, it can be put into almost anything.

There is a mid-shifter that can be purchased, but that is more expense. There is a fellow on the Facebook page that showed me pics of his dent, which has a 460 with a TKO-500 and the mid-shifter. I'll try to contact him and see if he can post his truck pics on this thread. I will snap pics of mine the second I get it all together, hopefully this Friday.

[BlueovalFE]

Thanks, Jason, and good luck getting everything together!

[BlueovalFE]

I heard from Brent again and he informed me that Mike Forte had what I was looking for but he couldn't get it for some reason. Too bad because he's a good guy and sponsor on the fe.com board.

[psquare75]

Ok, apologies for long post and big pics ahead of time. Jason msg me on Facebook regarding my TKO in my dent, and since the trucks are so similar, I thought I'd post my experiences.

Truck. 79 F100. 460/C6 swapped in years ago. 3.25:1 rear, DJM kit, blah blah blah...
This is just a daily driver/cruise night/spin the tires/home depot truck.
Why swap? I was tired of 10-11 MPG and revving 2700-2800 on the highway.
I had the extra task of swapping to stick, that may or may not apply to you.



Initially, I wanted to do a T19 with 2.75s in the rear, so I found a 5.11:1 T19, and I kinda hated it, the gear spreads were wayy too much for what I wanted, and even gearing down the rear end, I still wouldn't have been happy and out $$$ for a rear. If I had a 4:1 first gear T19, it would have worked, but alas.

So I started out doing the manual swap. I used all late 79 stuff (oddball stuff of course), and rebuilt or replaced everything. new bushings, z bar, etc etc etc.

The parts truck was a 79 F350 tow truck. It had a 400, so I used that bellhousing/plate/clutch/z bar bracket/etc for my 460.





Cleaned up everything. (I found a very sad 78 F250 at the yard that had an old Hurst Super Boot. I liked the look, so I copied it with a parts store generic boot, but that's another story.



I had to cut my cab floor as it did not have the removable panel.



Clutch kit was an L&L flywheel/clutch.

[psquare75]

Beast!



T19 installed.



Got it in, hated it.

More research. I looked into TKOs. Admittedly, the budget went out the window at this point. I went with a 500 over a 600 for a few reasons.

- Can use 10 spline clutch with the 'conversion' input shaft. = use L&L
- I liked the higher first gear (3.2x vs 2.8? Not sure, I forget)
- I liked the sky high overdrive (.6 something vs .8 something)
- 100 ft lbs difference.. I'm not launching the truck and even when I do, it just spins anyway.. and even if I were, my 460 isn't THAT hot.

So I went with a TKO-500. I got it from Mike Fortes, I'm local to him, about 45 minutes away.

So here's the $64K question. WHAT SHIFTER?!

*I* did the midshifter conversion, for a few reasons.
- My seat moves forward/back, and I don't have a gas tank behind it. = STORAGE!
- It, uh, looked right.

I did some quick measurements and the 'rear mount' shifter hole looked a little too close to the seat for me and I didn't want to do this 2x. I *knew* the midshift would fit, so I did it. I also got the upgraded shifter from Mike as he handled the conversion on the TKO. I had no access to the vaunted "overdrive toploader" and I couldn't even find pics of one in a truck to see how they sat installed, so.. yeah. I erred on the safe side.

TKO vs T19



Installed the TKO vs the T19 was this

Remove T19

Bolt TKO to bellhousing

Swap mount over

Line up X member and drill. I used the C6 X member with the T19 and the TKO.

Installed.

[psquare75]

Bolted the panel down, made a 'sheet metal' cover for the T19 hole, and made a new hole for the TKO. The mid shift sits back a bit. A FRONT shift would probably come out in the T19 hole.

Yay retro Hurst boot.



*STICKS*

YMMV. I drive with my seat all the way back, as I'm 6'2". I dug into the Hurst catalog on Summit, looking at measurements. I found a few I liked, but I settled on the GM C/K series truck shifter stick for an NV2500/3500. It's tall, leans back and kicks slightly to the left towards the driver. IF I had used the 'rear mount' shifter, I would have tried the specified shifter for the truck with a top loader, kinda shaped like a J.

[psquare75]

If the seat is all the way forward, the stick will hit the seat in 2nd and 4th gears. I don't drive like that, so I don't care.

As for driveshafts, I scored one at a local yard that was the right length, it is from a 77-79 Cougar/LTD II. Not sure what drivetrain. I swapped on the C6/TKO yoke.


Biggest issue I had was adjusting the clutch rod properly and I was an idiot that incorrectly tightened the pressure plate and had to do it 3x to get it to seat right. The actual install was fine. Used the dentside fork/TO bearing, etc. everything.

HOW DOES IT DRIVE?

It feels like a T5 in a Mustang but sized like a pickup truck, the ratios are similar. Even with the 3.25:1 (27.5" tires.. 255 50 17) I can cruise around town at 40 MPH in 5th, at around 1100 rpm. 65 is around 21-200 RPM, and 80 is 3K . Now all I hear is wind noise! If I go bigger tires/rims in the rear, I will probably regear but try to keep the same ratio, as I like how it drives now.

The biggest problem now is I have immense wheel hop. Like holy crap, I can't even do a spirited take off from a stopsign without it bouncing all over. With the C6, I'd just stuff it and spin through a gear and a half..

I think I'm going to try the Lakewood 21715 slapper bars. Meant for 73-2000 Chev and 86-03? Fords.

Price? Um.. Trans was a little under $3K. Stick was $80, etc etc. I think I'm into the full swap for under $4400, off the cuff. Bell/pedal parts rebuilt/L&L kit, etc etc etc.

[69timemachine]

Thanks again Paul! After seeing your truck, I had to ask you to post because I knew your experiences and setup would benefit some of the others planning a TKO-500 or TKO-600 swap! It turned out great and I really like your truck!

[tbone6]

Thanks again Paul! After seeing your truck, I had to ask you to post because I knew your experiences and setup would benefit some of the others planning a TKO-500 or TKO-600 swap! It turned out great and I really like your truck!

Thanks for posting this. It should help a lot. When I took my measurements, I felt I could get away with the shifter in the forward "stock" location. My tank is still in the cab and I have the seat all the way back. I still think this will work after seeing psquare's post.

[yeager351]

I like the mid shitter location, as big as I am It may be the way I go. But at the same token I do have the Frigidaire under dash A/C unit. And that may well interfere with a mid mount shifter.

[69timemachine]

I finished my TKO-600 install a week ago but have been fighting problems with my wife's laptop which doesn't seem to want to pick up wifi. Anyway, everything with the transmission install went fairly smoothly. The biggest hassle of the job I would say is having to dial indicate the bell housing. Mine was off .011", which is out of the allowed .005" tolerance. Removing the stock dowel wasn't bad on the passenger's side, but it was a pain to remove the driver's side since my header collector was in the way. I had to put all my extensions together to make a long, semi-flexible punch, and route it over the oil filter, under the p/s pump, and behind the motor mount to the dowel hole. After tapping on it for a while, it wouldn't budge. I changed over to the air punch and a quick pull of the trigger had the dowel on the floor. Here is a link to a video that I found helpful when dial indicating the bell housing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzc2tmF ... ata_player

I purchased my offset dowels from:
http://www.robbmcperformance.com/products/dowels.html

They were really nice quality and not all that expensive. They are longer than stock, and I noticed that the factory did not drill the dowel holes to 1/2" diameter all the way through the bell like the new dowels would require. I drilled them out from the transmission side, taking care not to go all the way through to disturb the factory drilled portion of the dowel holes. I tapped the old dowel pins through to check for binding, and there was a little, so I cleaned the portions I drilled slightly with a carbide bit, being careful not to touch the factory drilled portion of the hole. I didn't want to hit that portion and alter the factory dowel fitment. Everything then lined up within .004" with the offset dowels. In went the 26 spline disc, pressure plate, release arm, and bell housing.

On my first attempt to install the trans, the shifter stub hit the floorboard before it would quite reach the shifter hole in the floor, so I removed the shift cover and attempted again. The breather vent was bumping the floorboard this time, but the trans was almost in. I lowered it one more time and put a little dimple on the floorboard in the area of the vent. The third attempt had the trans slide right in. I was a little nervous at this point because there was only about a 1/8" gap between the trans and floorboard, but after I laid the crossmember and mount in place, I could see then that I had room for the trans to drop down onto the mount. My particular truck has about a 1/4" gap between the trans and floorboard. I bought new polyurethane cab mount bushings, but haven't gotten around to installing them yet. My stock bushings still look pretty good, but I believe they are squatted by about 1/8" or 1/4". The best advice on clearance I can give is to make sure your cab bushings are in good condition, or go ahead and play it safe and install poly bushings before attempting the TKO install. I got lucky, but I probably wouldn't have had to dimple the floor for the breather if I had installed those new bushings first. I'll still install them this winter.

I didn't make many errors in my measurements, other than forgetting the 3/4" spacer between the trans and bell when I figured the shifter location. The TopLoader's shifter is about an inch left of the transmission center line, and the TKO has its shifter perfectly centered. I enlarged the old shifter hole 1" to the right and 3/4" rearward, and then made a small filler plate in the shape of a L to cover the remainder of the old hole. It bolts into three of the old bolt holes and has one of the new bolt holes drilled into it as well. The shifter belzel still covered my previously trimmed floor mat, except for the holes for its old mounting screws. I simply took the new trimmings and cut them down into little patches, C-A glued them into place, and blotted a little flat black paint over the shiny glue to match the black floor mat. The result looks good and you can't see them unless you know they're there. That should work fine until the next time I replace the floor mat.

The crossmember had to be moved back around 3.125" to 3.25". I marked the location of the new holes, but didn't drill them until the trans and crossmember were already in place, just to double check my measurements.

I wired in the pigtail I bought for the backup lights and rerouted the speedo cable to the driver's side. I didn't bother wiring in the neutral safety switch since the truck didn't have it before, but the switch comes installed in the trans in case I change my mind.

I purchased a 1310 new OEM C6 yoke off of eBay a while back for $40. American Powertrain warned me to make sure that it wouldn't bottom out since most C6 yokes have about an inch of smooth area with no splines in the end. Also to make sure that there would be at least a couple inches of contact area on the splines and that the yoke will ride in the tail housing bushing. My measurements showed that there wouldn't be much travel before the yoke bottomed, so I measured the distance to the splines and transferred it to the outside, wrapped a piece of tape around for a line, and trimmed off the smooth portion with my cutoff wheel on my die grinder. I was going to use the chopsaw, but it builds a lot of heat and doesn't make the cleanest cut, so I opted for the die grinder. Now the splines start at the end like a regular yoke, and I put the chamfer for the seal back on with the bench grinder. When installed, it fit about 3/4" further rearward of what I thought, but that was ok since I still had about 2" of spline contact and about 1.75" clearance before bottoming. And I didn't have to use a combination u-joint since this yoke was 1310.

My Hurst 5384331 stick was perfectly straight, causing a little reach for 5th. I laid a strip of scrap metal on top of the shifter stub, and leaned it toward my leg until it was a few inches away when in 1st gear. I placed my angle gauge on the metal and it showed 25 degrees. I took the stick off, c-clamped it to the metal work bench, placed my angle gauge near the top, and heated the area just above where it attaches to the shifter stub. I gently eased it over until the gauge read 25 degrees. The chrome only got damaged where I heated it, and that spot is covered by the shifter boot. I reused my Mustang boot and belzel from the TopLoader. The end result is much better than it was with the stick straight!

After taking it out on the road, I can say that it SO much better having the TKO versus having the TopLoader! Those online gear calculators are accurate, because my revs are right where they said they would be! With the 4.56 gear swap and the .64 overdrive, 70mph is now 2,600 rpm, not 3,400 rpm as it was with the TopLoader and 3.70's. It's nice being able to hear what my passenger is saying at 70 now! I'll need to run a couple of tanks of fuel through before I can start judging the mileage, but in the amount of cruising I have done so far, I can already tell you that my fuel gauge doesn't move like the minute hand of a clock anymore! I have to baby it for 500 miles to break in the TKO, then change the fluid. After that, I'll get to see how hammer down performance has increased!

[69timemachine]

Some more pictures!

[69timemachine]

A few more pictures!