[eschaider]

Originally Posted by blykins

I mainly had trouble with these statements:

"As long as you do not hook up your tires in third gear under full power and/or do not have a relatively robust engine you are not likely to have a problem. On the other hand if you nave a relatively robust engine and you also hook up in third you are in a dance with the devil. It is unlikely (but not impossible) to break it on the first attempt however repeated WOT third gear operation with the tires hooked will kill it."

You are correct Brent, I think the absolute in my last sentence could have / should have been picked more artfully and carefully. To state, 'you will kill it', is not fair nor appropriate. There are any number of cars who will not possess sufficient torque, traction or weight to damage the transmission. What we do know is there are those that do, can and have. It is not speculation it is a matter of fact. What we don't know is how many, what types or how frequently.

Originally Posted by blykins

"This is a royal PITA when everything goes right. When things go bump in the dark it'll blow you mind and your patience. This is something Tremec has known about for a decade (maybe more) and chosen to do absolutely nothing about!"

This is simply a statement of fact. Unless you have taken the time and effort to shorten and modify one of the TKO600 mainshaft third gears to accept the replaceable synchronizer teeth like the high gear input shaft uses, you simply have no frame of reference with which to judge the process against. After the shortening and machining to look like the input shaft's replaceable synchronizer register, the job is not complete until a corresponding spacer is sized, machined and fit between second gear and third gear to properly position third with its driven countershaft equivalent, correcting the tooth face misalignment.

When I contacted Tremec engineering about this problem in late 2006 (if I recall correctly) to make them aware of it, they told me they knew when they designed the transmission that there was a misalignment and it amounted to ~0.140" (according to Tremec's doc at the time) moreover it was necessary in order to manufacture the one piece TKO600 countershaft. When I suggested the third gear fix to the problem the engineer informed me the transmission had never failed in service — a rather amazing service record for any mechanical device! When I sent him a pic of the destroyed gears he indicated the T-56 was the company's focus going forward and the TKO was what it was.

While you were not party to that conversation, I was. It represented a callous lack of regard for a known (to Tremec) problem and depending on application a discoverable problem for the end user of the transmission. It also said the company was focusing on other products going forward and not putting any further maintenance or development efforts into this particular transmission or problem.

That is all right and that is also the company's right and privilege. It is also something the purchaser/end user ought to at least be aware of in his selection process.

Originally Posted by blykins

"While it is not an absolute that you will get shot every time you play Russian Roulette, it is true that the more often you play the more likely you are to get shot, again sort of a similar phenomena here. I think the number of Cobra's who can load their third gear, gears to their breaking threshold is relatively small, more because of the car weight and the spectacular experience available in car at WOT in third gear. That however does not mean that they will not fail. Importantly if and when they do fail the attendant gear tooth shrapnel is capable of expanding the scope of the failure if it gets into other gear sets inside the transmission."

Those statements infer that:

1. Any car with a TKO 600, a handful of horsepower, and good traction will most likely shatter 3rd gear.

Of course that's not true. I forgot to mention the '69 Mustang that belongs to a customer of mine with a 529 inch Boss headed big block...740 hp and 700 lb-ft of torque. No issues.

The inference you have drawn is in fact your own and not mine, nor my words. My respective words are in blue above. While you are absolutely entitled to your own interpretation and inferences it is noteworthy it is your interpretation, your words and your inferences not mine nor what I said.

Originally Posted by blykins

2. There are instances throughout the world of TKO 600's breaking 3rd gears and clustershafts because of a 'known' manufacturing defects and they choose to simply not do anything about it.

Of course that's not true either. If I were a multi-million dollar company making 1000's of transmissions at a time, I most likely wouldn't do a re-design, tooling change, etc., for just ONE instance of a failure.

Those are not my words Brent. Those are your words. My words from post #8 above were:

This is a royal PITA when everything goes right. When things go bump in the dark it'll blow you mind and your patience. This is something Tremec has known about for a decade (maybe more) and chosen to do absolutely nothing about!

The PITA comment was a direct reference to the remanufacturing effort associated with modifying the mainshaft third gear. The immediately following sentence which you can see in blue above is quite different than what you have asserted I have said, when in fact I did not.

Originally Posted by blykins

3. Using a TKO 600 is just like rolling the dice everyday...

There were many insinuations in your posts Ed that were based on ONE known failure and, honestly, just a lot of your own opinions.

You may choose (for whatever reason) to season the wording to fit your own purposes and that is alright — for your purposes. For my part I attempted to stay as factual as possible. The words in your point #3 above are again your words not mine.

Once again and concisely in one spot, the facts are as follows;

It is a fact that,

◉ Third gear has a 0.140" countershaft/mainshaft mismatch according to Tremec,

◉ Tremec has known of this mismatch since the design phase of the TKO600,

◉ Tremec intends to do nothing about the mismatch,

◉ Tremec stated the transmission has never failed in service, (in fairness they probably meant third gear),

◉ Despite their representations to the contrary, third gear has failed in service at least one time we are all aware of,

◉ We do not have an adequately broad enough view of the total TKO600 product sales to know how many more have failed and Tremec will not assist,

◉ We do know one has failed,

◉ We do know anything that has failed once can fail again,

◉ We are not privy to the threshold conditions necessary to fail the transmission,

◉ It is to our advantage to know about this type of failure when selecting a transmission so we can select in our own best interests.

I think the bulleted facts above can easily stand on their own. I don't believe I have intentionally included my opinions but rather stayed very close to known fact. If you have an example of my use of an opinion as fact I will certainly restate the bullet to reflect fact and remove or retract the opinion.

Originally Posted by blykins

Thousands upon thousands of people read these posts and there's just no reason for misinformation to be passed around.

I could not agree more with you on that point Brent. That is why it is important for potential transmission shoppers to know about this kind of 'stuff'. Maybe it will be a non issue for their build but on the other hand maybe it will not.

If it falls into the maybe it will not category, or close enough they don't want to take a chance, then we are doing for someone else what I would think most of us would hope someone would do for us if roles were reversed. That's a fairly honorable endeavor no matter how you look at it.


Ed