kilby94

My T-5 has pretty much bitten the dust, pops out of 2nd, grinds 3rd everytime, and 5th whines... I have been talking to a guy fairly local that has a TKO 600 that is still in his everyday driver now, but he wants to go auto.. He wanted $1600 for TKO 600 (5008 model with .64 overdrive), Bellhousing, re-surfaced flywheel, fidanza ceramic clutch and PP, 31 spline output yolk, steeda shifter, clutch arm, throw out bearing, block out plate... We agreed that i could get it picked up for $1400.. Does this sound like a reasonable deal? I know that i could probably save a hundred or two if i waited and kept looking, but this seems to me like a decent deal.. It is his everyday driver and he said that it drives great. The clutch is a little much for me, but it would work temporarily.. What do you think.. Is this a good trans to swap to?

Thanks, Richard

67mustang302

The trans alone right now is worth $2,200 new. I have a 600 in my 67, works great.

94ford5liter

I have a tko 600 as well, that is a pretty good deal. I spent 3500 in parts for mine alone. It is in a whole different league than the t-5, but it is also considerably more notchier. I am going to get a steeda tri-ax for mine, supposively that is a night and day difference. If you want a smoother shifting trans with an easy clutch, the T-56 would be the way to go. However, the t56 swap is even more than the tko600 swap.

67mustang302

I went from the stock TKO 600 shifter on mine(that fell apart when 2 bolts rattled loose) to the Tri Ax, and the Tri Ax is a WAY better shifter on the 600. Also if you run the GM Synchromesh it helps a lot with the notchy shifting, but it's inherent in the synchro design of the TKO's. If you get one from Promotion Powertrain in Florida, they have a shift lug/finger upgrade kit that resolves a lot of the notchy/poor shifting issues. But mine with the GM fluid at the Tri Ax shifts very well, but it does take a bit of effort over 6,000rpm. They're practically indestructible though, it's like a modern version of the old Ford Toploader with a 5th gear.

And yeah, when I did mine all total with bellhousing, flywheel, clutch, trans, yoke etc I was into it for almost $4,000(that's without the new gears for the diff as well). My 67 needed more crap to make a TKO work though, basically EVERYTHING had to get replaced.

The T56 is definitely a MUCH better shifting trans, but the TKO is the more economical solution, and is arguably a much stronger trans. The Viper T56 is on par with the TKO in terms of brute strength though.

kilby94

Thats re-assuring! I think i'm gonna pick it up Saturday.. I'll let you know how it does..

golden_eye

Funny you say that. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the TKO's were based off the Toploader after Ford sold the design to Tremec sometime way back when. A guy I know has a TKO 500 in his Cobra and he seems pretty satisfied with it.

67mustang302

If you look at how they're built, they're very similar. The T56's use carbon clutch cones so they shift better(T5's also I think), but the TKO's use a bronze blocker ring setup just like the Toploaders did. The big differences aside from the extra gear, is where Ford used a heavy iron case the TKO's are an aluminum case, also Ford simply built the gear clusters oversized to handle the power, whereas the TKO's use 4615 alloy that wasn't available when the Toploaders were in production. Also the TKO runs on a much lighter ATF spec type fluid, rather than the Toploader's gl spec gear oil. Also internal vs external shift rails.

Essentially if you were to modernize a Toploader, you'd basically get a TKO. It's a transmission that's designed to take a huge amount of abuse.