I recently replaced my engine and transmission ( see engine forum ).  My new trans is a Tremec TKO 550  5 speed (Keisler Perfect Fit series).  If anyone is planning to replace their trans with one of these units, you would be strongly advised to consider it carefully.

  The trans appears to be everything that it is advertised to be.  It did however, take us 8 1/2 hours to remove the M21 and get the Tremec installed.  Now mind you, neither of us believes in reading instructions.  To actually take about 15 minutes and read them might have just saved us around and hour and a half and a lot of sweat and cursing!

  The problems we encountered:

1.  The bellhousing has to be removed and slipped over the inputshaft of the transmission while you are holding the trans on it's side jammed over the crossmember.  Now think about aligning the clutch and throwout bearing while holding the bellhousing and trans.

2.  The trans mount holes had to be elongated for the bolts to fit.

3.  While driving home, the new LARGER yoke cut through my emergency brake cable.

4.  Even though all the machine marks were lined up, the LARGER yoke was banging against the fiberglass floor boards.

5.  If you buy it and they offer you a new clutch plate, TAKE IT cause the clutch plate you have won't fit the input shaft ( wrong spline count ).

6.  The speedometer gear they supplied was incorrect even though it was the correct color.  On the chassis dyno, with my speedometer reading 78 mph, my actual ground speed was 65mph

7.  Now I am left with a choise:  I know the clutch won't last till I sell the car , do I cut the crossmember and make it a removeable unit so I can actually get the trans out of the way to replace the clutch or spend another day's labor fighting the crossmember? Or do I pay a professional five or six hundred bucks to change it for me every time it needs replacing?  Normally I would not hesitate to do surgery on the crossmember but if I do, it will surely lower the value of the car.

When I contacted Keisler Engineering about my problems, they said "well, on a '69 if you have a problem it will be with the e-brake."  "Well, with a '69, if you have a problem it will be with the larger yoke hitting the floor."  "Well, with a '69 we have ocassionally exprianced the need to elongate the bolt holes."  Well hell, the chassis is the same from '63 to '82 so I guess all their "perfect fit" series will have the same possible problems regardless of the year of the Corvette!  Actually the only 'perfect fit' was the shifter.  It is exactly where it should be with regards to fit in the stock console.

Any thoughts on the crossmember?

Glenn

Perfect fit huh? The crossmember on my 79 bolts in. Yours does'nt?

Had the same problems as you , but I cut my cross member which made my install much easier. I purchased mine from classic 5 sp chevy. They were very helpful. I saw that the cable was to close so I moved it to the side. Never did get the speedo to work correctly. I replaced the clutch,throw out bearing & pressure plate also. When you cut the crossmember..(I had to design my own as it was 3 yr ago) it made installing the trans pretty easy. Had no problems with bolts.  The cross members on automatic cars bolts on the cross member on 4 spd is welded.  Glenn it's bad I didn't know about your install...probably could have saved you some headaches as I'm only about an hour from you. Also read about negative experience with Keisler that's why I went with class5sppedchevy.

Alan

 

I don't have any personal experience with Keisler but I know the Mopar people hate Keisler with a passion. When I had my '67 Charger I read of many problems Mopar owners had dealing with Keisler. I've also seen nothing but glowing reports of Keisler and their products in the car magazines, but I would expect when a major car mag calls and says they want to do a piece on your product, you would bend over backwards to give first class service and product.

It's to bad that GM just didn't make all transmission crossmembers bolted in. I don't know what year they did smart'n up with a bolt in (4 spd) crossmember, but I was thankful they did on my '81. Swapping out the "blown" Borg Warner-T10 for a Richmond T10 was a breeze. Unfortunately the 5 spd Tremec kit wasn't available when I did this, otherwise I would have put that in.

Just my opinion: Since your car is already modified, I would cut and modify the crossmember for ease of servicing.  

Sarge

 I saw the hat trick install with the 4spd non removable crossmember. I am glad I put the auto frame in my 73. It is a breeze to drop the trans. Have had no problems with my tremec or Keisler.

I am probably going to go with a tremec 5 speed when I get to that point, its nice to here the issues that other people have had with there installs. It sounds like I will avoid most of them since I have an automatic frame and my x member is bolted in. 

More importantly, Now that it is installed how does it drive?  Even if it took me all day to put in I would put up with it since im going on 1 year and a half building a car I have never driven in the first place.

  One important note is the routing of the speedo cable if you have stock out the back exhaust. The cable can get fried. Side exhaust no problem. 

I have a 3.70 rear in mine & can drive fine in 5th gear over 40 mph. Went to a show in NJ a few weeks ago and drove 80-90 on the turnpike for about 40 miles & the rest on back roads & towns . Total miles 120 averaged 17.2mpg. Which is pretty consistant as I've figured cruising around I average 15-17mpg. My trans felt tight for awhile too...now it feels fine. Going from 2 to 3rd is straight up..not up & over ..took my awhile to get used to. I still start out in 3rd sometimes if I'm not paying attention. The TKO-600 1st gear isn't as low as the TKO-550 & 5th is .64.

Alan