When i first bought the car for my little brother, all seemed swell. After a few months of light driving (He doesn't really have anywhere to go so it's not driven often, once or twice a week) it started to slightly grind going into 3rd. It was intermittent, so i thought nothing of it. Maybe he wasn't pushing the clutch all the way to the floor; After all, it is his first time driving a clutch.

However, it progressively got worse; To the point where i told him to let me drive it. It now intermittently grinds going into 2nd, just barely noticeably and rarely. However, it grinds very badly and every single time you try and shift into 3rd. You've gotta almost jam it into gear quickly simply to avoid the grinding as much as possible. I figured it was a clutch issue but I've checked multiple things and they seem to check out, other than the fluid being almost to the low mark, but no leaks.

Is this an issue with the clutch? Maybe the fork, or perhaps air in the system...Something preventing it from disengaging fully? Or, do we need to have the tranny rebuilt due to a failed synchro, thus we're kinda fucked? Opinions? Anything i can check out to narrow what it is down, so we're sure?

 

If the car shifts good in the rest of the gears and goes into 1st. from a stand still then you probably have the synchros going out . you will probably find that it is much cheaper to buy a used replacement from someone that you trust rather than rebuild the one you have. You might want to try draining the trans fluid and replacing with a good quality fluid , that might help for a bit.