1. Home
  2. Ford Mustang Forum
  3. My Tremec TKO Nightmare - crap after 30,000 miles!

My Tremec TKO Nightmare - crap after 30,000 miles!

I bought my TKO brand new (about a year ago) and has 30,000 miles on it now.

I installed it with a new king cobra clutch, new steel fly wheel, new pro

5.0 shifter, new bell housing, new bigger shift fork, etc. (all from D&D Performance) in a virtually stock 88 5.0 Mustang GT . I have changed the fluid twice with nothing but GM syncrhomesh.

Just this last week, I heard horrible sounds coming from it. At first I thought it was a bad tire. It was a low pitch rubbing/vibrating sound at low speeds and increased in pitch as I went faster.

I took the car to a transmission shop where they drained the fluid to find "peices of medal" in it. I didn't get to see it with my own eyes, but they said it looked pretty bad.

As you can imagine, I am trying to figure out what went wrong. I'll have a hard time putting another new or rebuilt transmission in the car without knowing the cause. I can only think of two causes:

  1. Clutch adjustment: I have an adjustable clutch quadrant along with a firewall adjuster. Using the firewall adjuster, the clutch has been agressively adjusted to be as close to the carpet as possible and still being able to shift with no grinding.

  1. Engine throttle stuck at high RPMs: The past few months, between hard shifts (when I push the pedal hard against the carpet), it seems the throttle cable sticks. When this occurs (has probably happened to me a dozen times), the transmission does not seem to take hold, yet the engine seems to bounce on the rev limiter over and over. I thought that maybe the engine was thrashing the insides of the transmission when it did this. I was suprised that the transmission didn't seem to stay engaged when this occurs. By the way, the transmission would go into gear just fine when this happened. I would either have to turn off the ignition or wait a few seconds for the transmission to take hold. I do have a new throttle cable to replace my old crusty one, but have not had a chance to install it.

I know that abuse has to go along with excessive wear, but am not hard on it all the time, and would be suprised to see the TKO not hold up as long as the stock T5 (wich had 130,000 miles on it).

Do you think one of my suspected reasons is the actual cause?

I'm wondering if it would need a complete rebuild or simply a repair on one part? The transmission works very well still. It just makes the same rubbing/vibrating sound. The car is parked for now until I get it repaired, of course.

Any thoughts/suggestions/insight would be appreciated. I'm assuming the warranty is long gone and am considering sending it to Hanlon Motorsports for repair/rebuild.

More info on my stang:

formatting link

Reply to
88GT
Loading thread data ...

no one has any thoughts on this?

should have made it shorter. :-(

Reply to
88GT

I don't know much about transmissions... but metal in the tranny is never good. Btw, it is "metal" not "medal". 2nd.. I don't see clutch adjustment being an issue at all as long as the clutch is fully engaging (you'd find the clutch slipping if it wasn't fully engaged)... and for the throttle cable.. fix that you lazybutt ;). The cause or not, fix it!

-Mike

Motorsports

Reply to
<memset

Clutch adjustment can very well be an issue. If you aren't fully disengaging the clutch (as could be the case if it's catching just off the floor), then you run the risk of still driving the transmission when trying to shift - something that the synchronizers really don't like too much. The metal that is there could be shavings off of the sychronizers that are trying to do their job under the stress of the engine still powering the transmission.

Think shifting without the clutch, at a lesser scale.

To the O.P. - was this thing next to impossible to get into reverse without grinding or without going from 5th to reverse real fast? When you put it in first gear after sitting stopped with the clutch on the floor for a while, was there a clunk and/or did the car jump a bit? These are usually signs of a bad (seized or dragging) pilot bearing, or a clutch that isn't quite released.

Also, driving around with a known-to-be-sticking throttle cable and doing nothing about it is like playing russian roulette. You're just tempting fate and Darwinism. Fix that before you take yourself (and perhaps someone else) out...

Besides, it's not helping your transmission problem.

JS

Reply to
JS

And hence "fully engaging"... butt-lick. LOL j/k. Where did I hear that...... I think Jeepers Creepers 2.. funny movie.

-Mike

formatting link
> > >

Reply to
<memset

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.