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Could use some help figuring out my situation. Read bunch of posts but not sure if I have something not adjusted properly, broke something or swap parts not working together correctly. I am so close to getting car on road after many years and now this issue came up.
I have 1992 Camaro that was an automatic. Replaced entire drivetrain with LS3 engine and TR6060 manual transmission from 2012 Camaro. Finished conversion with installing a thirdgen clutch master cylinder and T5/T56 conversion pedal assembly from Hawks Motorsports. Link to pedals with pictures: https://www.hawksmotorsports.com/82-...-reproduction/
I bled hydraulic system with vacuum hand pump from engine bay as I have no speed bleed line installed. Process did remove air and pedal seemed to work ok, just not very stiff. I have not driven car as I am working on a few minor items before I take care of ramp stands. I have been able to start the engine.
Other day I tried to start car and noticed that clutch pedal stays at bottom when depressed and will not come back. I have to push pedal all the way to engage the neutral safety switch that is on pedal assembly from Hawks. I believe this assembly gives you option to run switch two ways, like stock and then with big black button attached to assembly. I have wires connected to black button and that allowed me to previously start car. I looked at pedal under dash and when pressing pedal to floor, I can see black spring that is on pedal assembly rotate an then snap into a slot at full travel. This keeps spring and pedal in position at bottom and wont allow pedal to return. I can manually grab pedal to return position as pulling on pedal gets spring out of slot. I tried bleeding system again but that did not work. I unclipped clutch rod from pedal and tried to push rod by hand. Rod is stiff and I cannot push in very far by hand. I cannot see signs of hydraulic fluid loss. Fluid level in reservoir is stable.
Thinking that once I get car on ground and start it, could see if I can get car into gear by pushing clutch pedal only half way, not to floor. Pedal assembly does not look like I can adjust anything. I read some swap posts that cutch component parts between generations might not work best together. Would like to figure out what's wrong before I start replacing parts. Any thoughts? Thanks for reading.
I think I read somewhere on here that someone ad a similar issue and wound up removing that spring from the pedal assembly. The spring shouldn't be necessary, the clutch disc is the spring that is pushing the fluid out of the slave
Thanks for the info Scooter. I called Hawks and will email them video of clutch pedal in action. They should be able to tell me if working properly. I'll update once I find out more tomorrow.
You have to pedal bleed the slave cylinder in the transmission.
The clutch works the same whether the car is running or not. Just have someone spin the wheels by hand to see if it works. Make sure you understand how your differential works so you don't confuse trans spinning with diff idling.
What did you use for hydraulics? Are they used or new?
A sticking clutch pedal (won’t return from floor) is a common issue with 4 gen F Body LS1’s and C5 Corvettes. Flushing and bleeding the hydraulic fluid usually helps, then changing the master cylinder to an updated 01’ and later version is the next step. Last is then to replace the slave/throw out bearing. Leave the return spring on the clutch pedal. It’s there to bring the clutch pedal to the top of it’s travel, which allows the master cylinder to self adjust for clutch wear.
Update. Hawks confirmed for me that return spring on their pedal unit was working correctly from video I sent them. Turned out it was air in system. I bought a cheap reverse bleeder hand pump online and pushed fluid from transmission bleeder up into reservoir. That did the trick and now I can shift fine through the six forward gears. I now have issue with reverse. Cannot get into reverse at all. Shifter does not even start to slide over into reverse. Frustrating. I am going to post a new thread on this to see what peoples thoughts are. Most likely will have to remove transmission and have somebody inspect it.
Update. Hawks confirmed for me that return spring on their pedal unit was working correctly from video I sent them. Turned out it was air in system. I bought a cheap reverse bleeder hand pump online and pushed fluid from transmission bleeder up into reservoir. That did the trick and now I can shift fine through the six forward gears. I now have issue with reverse. Cannot get into reverse at all. Shifter does not even start to slide over into reverse. Frustrating. I am going to post a new thread on this to see what peoples thoughts are. Most likely will have to remove transmission and have somebody inspect it.
The electronic reverse lockout is probably not working. It defaults to locked out. Power to the solonoid unlocks it. Was it ever hooked up? On the 4th gens, it was controlled by the ecm. On thirdgens, it needs to be rigged differently. Many use the brake light switch, or there are some aftermarket controllers that use the speedometer signal (I.e lock out over 5mph).
I thought about that too. I started engine and worked shifter with and without reverse solenoid. I even installed a new solenoid and a weaker spring. It made no difference, still won't even go any bit over into reverse past 5th & 6th. I have aftermarket wiring harness with made by reputable company. It connects with proper wire harness to the stock LS3 ECU. Reading around, people can still muscle past solenoid with enough arm force but no luck for me.
I have rear end above ground with tires off. I can engage 1st-6th gears fine and when engine runs, the driveshaft works fine through all these gears. I do not hear any grinding or odd noises. Engine and transmission were pullout from a 2012 Camaro with "few thousand miles". They were delivered bolted together and I did not separate them. I installed into my car so it has stock internals, clutch and slave cylinder.
There are many posts on various car forums about T56 or TR6060 being difficult to get into reverse. Most of time, reverse worked for these people, then suddenly stopped going into reverse or became tough. Mine won't engage at all. I bought aftermarket MGW shift kit form Hawks that is made for this transmission. See link below with pictures.
Hawks informed me they have sold many of these kits with minimal issues and only one had issue with shifter linkage binding. I disassembled kit few times trying to shim it thinking that would help prevent any binding. You can not adjust it that much, it pretty much installs in one location. I did remove kit and try moving the horizontal shaft that sticks out of transmission case a few inches. This would tell me if I had any binding with linkage when kit was not installed. Transmission shaft stub seems to rotate freely and as much as it can when I use an allen wrench to manipulate. Although shifter hardware does not seem to be binding any of the linkage, the parts do get very close.
I came across one post that person with T56 had similar problem with no noises or vibrations. He removed rear case and found big chunk of metal piece broken off and stuck in the 1st & 2nd gears. He could still somehow shift into 1st & 2nd but broken piece did not allow reverse to engage. In looking at Tr6060 manual, the reverse fork is on same shaft as 5th & 6th fork. Just seems very odd to me. If something was broken, you think I would have vibrations or weird noises. It could be linkage interference in the MGW kit so I will look at that some more. Have time until next spring to figure out. Just bummed as I worked very hard entire last year to get car on road and just missed end of season.
I started engine and worked shifter with and without reverse solenoid. I even installed a new solenoid and a weaker spring. It made no difference, still won't even go any bit over into reverse past 5th & 6th. Reading around, people can still muscle past solenoid with enough arm force but no luck for me.
If you cannot make it from neutral in the 5th - 6th gate to neutral in the R gate,
with the reverse lockout solenoid assembly (including the housing holding the spring,) then you should start eliminating external shift components, which you did.
If the shifter bolted to the top of the case remains and you can't move over to the R gate, it's internal and the trans. is coming apart.
At that point, your salvage reseller should be contacted for partial refund, depending on terms and conditions of the sale.
I'm sorry you contacted Hawk's for transmission expertise.
I came across one post that person with T56 had similar problem with no noises or vibrations. He removed rear case and found big chunk of metal piece broken off and stuck in the 1st & 2nd gears. He could still somehow shift into 1st & 2nd but broken piece did not allow reverse to engage. In looking at Tr6060 manual, the reverse fork is on same shaft as 5th & 6th fork. Just seems very odd to me. If something was broken, you think I would have vibrations or weird noises.
The 5-6 rail is a tube riding on the R rail. I have seen both individually broken in the T56 units and the TR6060 is the same overall design.
This may or may not help. I’m not a transmission expert by any means. But I bought a ‘97 Camaro that was auto originally and swapped to a T56. I got a good price on it (honest seller, imagine that) because one of the issues was he thought the transmission he bought was bad
Wouldn’t go in reverse
So while car is in the driveway I pull things apart, etc. see nothing wrong, head to google and spend hours researching issues.
Mine turned out to be simple. Even with power on the lockout solenoid, it wouldn’t slide over
Pulled the assembly out. Now has reverse
I mention this because I didn’t read that you tried that yet
Thanks for the additional thoughts. I decided to cut back bit more of transmission tunnel so I could access and remove shifter assembly cover. After taking cover off, I noticed that conical cone which connects shifter linkage to transmission internal linkage was broken. The metal ball that sits in shifter bushing was severed from rest of the conical cone. I think that was stopping me from going into reverse but I had enough movement/friction still with broken parts to operate 1st through 6th gears. See attached pictures. Thinking that this might have occurred when place that I bought engine & transmission pullout out delivered items. They broke stock remote shifter while transporting. Not a big deal at time since I knew would not be using stock shifter. Maybe the forces that broke remote linkage was enough to twist linkage rod and snap ball end of conical cone. Now I have to find replacement cone. Couldn't find online tonight so will call up some bigger companies this week.
Have a great update on my reverse situation. I ordered a used assembly of the parts shown in second picture of post #14 from Tick Performance along with a bronze bushing that the metal ball in questions sits into. Installed these parts last night. It works now! I can get car into reverse while off and engine running. Very happy that I don't have to remove transmission and throw more money at this car. Just have a few other minor items related to the LS swap to figure out and soon, I can drive the car for first time with rebuild this spring.
Have a great update on my reverse situation. I ordered a used assembly of the parts shown in second picture of post #14 from Tick Performance along with a bronze bushing that the metal ball in questions sits into. Installed these parts last night. It works now! I can get car into reverse while off and engine running. Very happy that I don't have to remove transmission and throw more money at this car. Just have a few other minor items related to the LS swap to figure out and soon, I can drive the car for first time with rebuild this spring.
BlackDog, Glad you got this sorted out! Sucks that it was broken during shipment though.
Question for you, what did you use for the crossmember for the transmission? I am currently swapping in a LY6 and TR6060 (out of a Challenger no less) and wondering what you used for crossmember/torque arm mount.
If you have picks would be really helpful, also of where the shifter ended up in the opening of the tunnel. Thanks.
slowblue, late response. Been busy past few weeks.
I used the Hooker Blackheart items for my LS3 & TR6060 swap. This consisted of their motor mounts, transmission cross member and dual exhaust. I was able to make everything fit but modifications were needed. It would have been a lot easier if tail shaft was switched from TR6060 to a T56 style unit. Installing these items took lots of time for me to figure out, have people help with welding and added some cost. Switching tail shaft will cost some money but would allow you to use non stock torque arm, not mess with narrowing bushing & bracket and less costly driveshaft connection. See attached pictures.
Below is what it took for me.
1) Modify cross member. Section that transmission mount sits on had to be narrowed so cross member would fit against TR6060. This was required as TR6060 rear case interferes with cross member is stock bolt location. I had machine shop cut off interfering metal and weld it back up.
2) Use shortened energy suspension transmission mount.
3) Buy TR6060 conversion mount bracket. Had to cut off some metal to make it fit.
4) Had custom driveshaft made as TR6060 driveshaft connection is different style than TR56. I needed custom driveshaft as I have aftermarket rear end but the transmission connector piece adds to the price.
5) the TR6060 driveshaft connection takes up room. I could not use aftermarket torque arm. Stuck with stock torque arm. Had to modify torque arm bracket that came with Hook cross member to make it thinner. Also had to make bushing thinner.
6) Bought shifter relocation bracket and shift handle kit from Hawks Motorsports. You will need something like this or fab it up as TR6060 shifter is offset.
7) Shifter relocation moves shifter up and to the right from a stick thirdgen location. Stock console will fit over this but will interfere with ash tray. Modification required to ash tray area.
thanks blackdog for the info! I am getting closer to test fitting the motor and trans together. had to get the Mopar input shaft shortened to work with the LS1 style bellhousing, just needs to be reassembled and installed in the car. didn't think about the output flange interfering with the torque arm mount!
Have the flange to yoke adapter already, need to get custom driveshaft eventually as well. for the crossmember i have the challenger specific mount with rubber isolators, and i think i will be building my own crossmember after seeing your pictures. Don't think the blackheart mount is worth buying to completely tear up.
For the shifter, i found this supplier, hopefully will land the shifter closer to proper position in the opening.. https://core-shifters.com/collection...eed-trans-swap
I will have to start a thread with installing the challenger transmission as i dont think it has been done before on this site??
slowblue, late response. Been busy past few weeks.
I used the Hooker Blackheart items for my LS3 & TR6060 swap. This consisted of their motor mounts, transmission cross member and dual exhaust. I was able to make everything fit but modifications were needed. It would have been a lot easier if tail shaft was switched from TR6060 to a T56 style unit. Installing these items took lots of time for me to figure out, have people help with welding and added some cost. Switching tail shaft will cost some money but would allow you to use non stock torque arm, not mess with narrowing bushing & bracket and less costly driveshaft connection. See attached pictures.
Below is what it took for me.
1) Modify cross member. Section that transmission mount sits on had to be narrowed so cross member would fit against TR6060. This was required as TR6060 rear case interferes with cross member is stock bolt location. I had machine shop cut off interfering metal and weld it back up.
2) Use shortened energy suspension transmission mount.
3) Buy TR6060 conversion mount bracket. Had to cut off some metal to make it fit.
4) Had custom driveshaft made as TR6060 driveshaft connection is different style than TR56. I needed custom driveshaft as I have aftermarket rear end but the transmission connector piece adds to the price.
5) the TR6060 driveshaft connection takes up room. I could not use aftermarket torque arm. Stuck with stock torque arm. Had to modify torque arm bracket that came with Hook cross member to make it thinner. Also had to make bushing thinner.
6) Bought shifter relocation bracket and shift handle kit from Hawks Motorsports. You will need something like this or fab it up as TR6060 shifter is offset.
7) Shifter relocation moves shifter up and to the right from a stick thirdgen location. Stock console will fit over this but will interfere with ash tray. Modification required to ash tray area.
I did a double take when I looked at this picture. First glance it looked like mine!!!!!
Also, I found a good adjustable torque arm: https://www.jegs.com/i/QA1/122/5282/10002/-1
09-28-2020, 11:37 AM
