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Bellhousing Dial In?

7K views 10 replies 10 participants last post by  Cougar5.O 
#1 ·
I am preparing to install my Quicktime steel bell housing and my TKO600. I've read that hard shifting (if it occurs) can be due to crank/trans alignment (as well as clutch adjustment). I've also read that the TKO's use a tapered input bearing on the input shaft and they can be sensitive to said crank/input alignment. All leading me to the think that I need to dial my bell housing in.

So I've been reading up on this and it's as clear as muddy water. I found nothing in the Tremec instructions saying it needs to be done. In fact, it says to just assemble the trans on the appropriate Ford aluminum bell housing. The Quicktime Instructions however say to dial it in. But I found several posts where guys have not dialed in their Quicktime bells and had no problems with their TKO's.

In addition to that, I have two guys I am personally friends with that I have a high level of trust in and that both say it's BS that it has to be done. Both of them have 40+ years each in hands on auto mechanics and have done many such jobs with no problems ever.

What says the collective? Is bell housing dialing in critical?
 
#3 ·
When I installed the TKO I had it was something I checked it and was off to one side. I ordered a set of offset dowels and adjusted it within spec. It was kinda a pain in the ass, it would help to have someone turn the motor as you take the readings of the dial indicator. After it was all set and done it didn’t do crap for the poor shifting of the TKO, still very notchy and still wouldn’t go into gear at high rpm. It’s like was like hitting a brick wall when going from 2 to 3
 
#4 ·
I certainly try to do it if I'm putting new stuff together. T56 I just did, absolutely indexed it. Did it make a difference? Can't say......never drove it before. My brother's TKO600? May as well try pushing the shifter into a concrete wall, and it's indexed properly. BUT....Liberty can fix the shifting issues and when that's done, they work really well. My friend had his sent out and I was pretty impressed with it, had I not bought the T56 I'd have had Liberty do a TKO600 up for me. The big downside there was that a T56 magnum was close to the same price as a Liberty modified TKO600 at that time. Since I was buying everything new, there was no sense in not doing the T56; particularly since it's a driver and not a race car of any sort.

I also like to check the runout on automatic transmissions that have a separate bellhousing. I've had several that were way off. You don't notice it in the shifting (obviously) but you DO notice the starter not aligning properly, abnormal pump wear, flexplate issues, etc. My PG (ultrabell) was WAY off, but it was the block's fault (had been on a stock block before and it was perfect) and not the bellhousing (Dart).
 
#10 ·
I bought a Lakewood bellhousing about 15 years ago and never used it. This time around I decided to try it even though I wasn't sure it would fit with a 1" setback (MM K-member). Well, it hit the tapered portion of the floorpan just aft of the firewall. Sledge-O-Matic cured that.

There were other mods such as trimming the bellhousing near the starter for exhaust clearance, cutting up two clutch forks to weld up one longer one so the clutch cable aligned properly, tweaking a factory fork opening dust cover to fit (Lakewood expects you to leave it wide open), and finally, dialing it in.

I made a small fixture to hold an indicator and had a set of offset dowels ready to go if needed. I used a marker and like a clock, wrote the numbers 1-12 around the opening. I placed my phone such that I could film the indicator as I slowly turned the engine around with a socket on the balancer bolt. This allowed me to note exactly where any deviation was which serves to show the direction the housing needs to go, if necessary.

I was surprised to find I was well within spec and didn't need to use the dowels as much as the interwebz says Lakewood bellhousings are the suck and are always way off. As noted above regarding Tremec aftermarket transmissions, my TR3550 is still a bit notchy.

Having spent the time to do it and not needed to adjust, would I dial it in next time? Yes.
 
#11 ·
I did my Quicktime bell to Dart 9.5 deck SHP while the engine was on the ground just before dropping it in.

Fairly easy, especially whereas I have a damper that's marked every 90 deg and a magnetic base/dial indicator setup.

I wrote the numbers directly on the back of the bell. It wasn't perfect, but it was in spec.
 
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