I'm getting driven up the wall by this silly issue, that may or may not even be an issue. About 75% of the time I shift into 3rd, it feels "rough" but it's not the kind of grind you'd get when you misshift. 2nd does it occasionally as well, and 1st sometimes (probably less than 10% of the time) feels like it's trying to lock me out, and I have to shove it into gear. At a stop, with the clutch in, it will occasionally exhibit the same behavior. I've tested the clutch, and it's not dragging. Whenever it isn't rough, it's literally perfect feeling, and literally falls into place perfectly smoothly. It seemingly happens at random. I've changed my seating position a bit, so my leg isn't as outstretched on the clutch, to make sure I get it all the way down everytime, and no difference, it just works great when it wants to.
I adjusted my clutch recently, the engagement point was a bit too low for my liking, but I made sure it's still perfectly within spec, and the master can still bleed. The issue was here before I adjusted, and it seems to have made no difference.
The 1st gear "shoving" thing happened after I changed fluid to CarQuest GL-4. The old fluid used to be smoother when I bought the car, but I don't know what it was, and I have a slow leak from the linkage shaft, so I need to keep it topped off, or it drops to about half the fluid height. I'm going to try Redline fluid in about a thousand miles, I'm tired of feeling like the fluid is at fault. 1st seems to be a smoother shift when I have the revs up pretty high.
It doesn't lock me out of gear at high revs, or low revs, or high speeds, or pretty much anything really abnormal, it just feels "clunky"
Is it something I'm doing wrong, or are my synchros shot, or is my slave dying (JasonY's suggestion), crappy fluid, or am I being paranoid?
Someone with more experience wanna try it and make me feel less crazy? I should have just told lawdogg to try it back when I met him, but I wasn't worried about it then.
I don't have an answer for you but I know exactly what you mean. On mine, 2nd and 3rd gear, as you are advancing the shifter into the gate, 1/2 way in you feel it catch on something. It doesn't stop it from going in gear and there is no grind...it's just not silky smooth. Shifting into 4th on mine, it almost sucks the shifter smoothly into the gear as you apply force with no "catch" half way through the throw. I just assumed it to be one of those stupid issues with these transmissions. The higher I rev mine and the faster I shift, the less I can notice it. Mainly notice just on slow shifts.
I don't have an answer for you but I know exactly what you mean. On mine, 2nd and 3rd gear, as you are advancing the shifter into the gate, 1/2 way in you feel it catch on something. It doesn't stop it from going in gear and there is no grind...it's just not silky smooth. Shifting into 4th on mine, it almost sucks the shifter smoothly into the gear as you apply force with no "catch" half way through the throw. I just assumed it to be one of those stupid issues with these transmissions. The higher I rev mine and the faster I shift, the less I can notice it. Mainly notice just on slow shifts.
Exactly. And of course, today it was a lot less noticeable. Or I just have a random rattle in my exhaust, and a funky electrical problem to distract me.
Doc, have you noticed any fluid leak at the slave cylinder? The only reason I ask is I had a similiar problem that turned out to be the slave cylinder had a very small leak. It would only do it when it was cold, hard to shift and clunky. Replaced the slave and all was good. Steve.
After I adjusted my shifter to hopefully cure my second gear issues, I noticed that when I put it in third I have something similar. If I do a moderately quick (normal for most people) shift, I can "feel" something half way into the gate and clunky is a good word to describe it. It's almost like there's some resistance for the collar or whatever, but then after a certain point there is no resistance.
However, when I shift into it really slow (give the trans internals time to slow down so the synchros don't have to work as hard) it goes in perfect.
I'm running 50/50 MT-90/MTL
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Haha well I did the adjustment a while ago, and no it didn't help. Brinkman suggested pulling the shift shaft to make sure a bushing didn't back off of the rail or something? He said if that was the problem it would eventually back completely off and not allow me in, but it's been acting the same all the time. I think it just needs rebuilt since when I double clutch it helps a lot. Plus, it shifts better at different rpms. If I just engage the clutch and pull out enough to get rolling and shift into second normally it'll go in sometimes/etc. The weird thing to me though is that it doesn't grind..
We'll see I guess. I just don't want to buy another trans and it's something little/stupid with this one. Oh well, everything in there is probably old and worn out anyhow.
You might want to try to contact Bret. He's very helpful and knows these transmissions pretty well from what I hear.
Is there a difference between upshifting to the said gears and downshifting to them? Obviously you can only downshift into 1st..
On mine, I get that exact same thing in 2nd and 3rd, however downshifting to those gears is like a hot knife through butter. I want to blame this on a worn taper on the synchronizer ring cogs. The "slider" assembly (I think its called that) slides against one side of the taper to downshift, and other side when upshifting. The upshift side probably doesn't have as much taper as it used to--it is worn down so instead of going against a 45 degree taper, it is now a 60 degree taper. So, instead of sliding right into gear, the slider hits the 60 degree wall, puts force on the synchro ring, the ring does its synchronizing part just fine, but it won't slide in perfectly smooth.
You'd need to have a good understanding of synchronized manual transmission operation to know wtf I just said. I am no metallurgist, but I'd blame this on the grade of metal used in the construction of the synchro rings--it just isn't resilient to wear. And the aftermarket brass rings probably aren't going to hold up any better, but choices are limited. Either replace them periodically, or don't shift. It would be tempting to take a stock synchro ring that has worn out cogs, put a small bead of weld on each cog and set up a milling machine to machine the new cogs back to original. It may be too time consuming and too impractical, but the result could be a very wear resistant part that'll last forever. It may be profitable for someone to set up a CNC mill to rebuild these things.
Or, I could be totally wrong and dreaming up the impossible / impractical.
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92 Daytona ES 2.5 Turbo / A523 104k
92 Lebaron GTC Conv. 2.5 Turbo / A568 170k
91 Daytona ES 3.0 V-6 / A543 190k
93 Geo Metro 1.0/5spd 141k *OPEC bitch-slapper* But only after it burned up 2 sets of exhaust valves!
Last edited by phantomrt : 05-17-2009 at 09:49 AM.
It's a little rough both ways, but it tends to be smoother on a downshift because I double clutch down, I don't bother on upshifts, the extra momentum spins off pretty quickly compared to trying to build speed going down. If I don't double clutch, it's smoother, but way clunkier, I have to use a larger amount of force to get it to go in, but it only has one "pop" into gear, as opposed to two when it's rough on a double clutched shift.
I wouldn't say there's an upshift and a downshift side unless you're not revmatching, then what you say makes perfect sense. I did another trans linkage mod yesterday, but didn't have a good chance to test it out yet, so I'll let you know on that. I also bled the clutch again to see if I had anymore air, but I didn't get any more.
Remanufacturing old synchros would be interesting, and extremely time consuming. It's probably cheaper to just make the rings out of something that won't fail quickly. I have to imagine billet rings would last a long time if they're taken care of, and made with the proper metal. Not much you can do about the friction rings though. They seem to fail, and then they take the rest of the synchro assemly with them
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"Clunky" Transmission
<<3750 pound beast.
