Hey folks,
today I lost 5th and reverse while driving. I had some problems in the past when shifting under load, mostly from 2nd to 3rd and sometimes from 3rd into 4th. But when I was shifting smoothly, everything was good. Also, I never had problems shifting into 5th, seldom into reverse. Today I tried to shift smoothly into 5th on the autobahn, but wasn't able to get the gear in. It was like blocked, no noises or scratching. I then left the autobahn and when I tryed to reverse, I couldn't get reverse in either. It kind of slipped in, but when I engaged the clutch, it just hopped out and I was in neutral. When I tried it with force, there was this typical scratching noise. I shut the engine down and tried again, but it behave exactly the same as when the engine was running. No problems shifting into the other gears though.

My car is a 1994 Series 3 Type-R. The shifter is an aftermarket (It says ReAmemyia, but I doubt its originality), last time it was out it looked like its in good shape, but I'm no expert. Engine mounts are DIY poly ones.

Does anyone have an idea, what could be wrong here?

 

There is a spring that you push against when you go to the right to 5th and Reverse. Could be something jacked up with that.

May also want to see if it will go in with the car off.

Dale

 

It doesn't work with the car shut off.

Where is that spring? In the gearbox itself? Or below the shifter? I don't consider myself able to mess with gearbox internals.

 

Likely the syncro ring is broken into pieces - common on the 5/R gears.

 

Same things happened to me, threw a JDM in but plan to rebuild it I’m curious what happened but probably the 5th gear syncro from everything I’ve gathered a well

 

I got this far, see Attachment. I couldn`t see anything wrong with the spring on the left. I guess the gearbox has to come out in order to further inspect that spring, right?



EDIT:
Is there a way to get the spring out from above? I put the car in 2nd and removed the shifter so that the spring is free, but I can't pull the spring out. Getting to the outer screws of the thing mounted to the gearbox is quite difficult because of the PPF thats in the way.



Thank you all for your replies!

 

With PPF and exhaust removed you might be able to access, but I've never attempted.

It's two M6(10mm hex) fasteners holding the little housings, some combination of 1/4" drive extensions with unis might get up there perhaps. Need to check the metal gasket underneath hasn't fallen out somewhere in the process too.

Does the "pin" come up when moved into the 1/2 gate? Odds are, it's still the syncro, 5/R at least are easy to fix comparatively.

 

I can press the pin down, and it comes back up again. Not sure if it's going completely down, like it should. Or what do you mean?

If it was the syncros, the gears should go in when the engin is off, right?

 

If the syncro is broken sometimes they stay in place, other times, they jam the sleeve/hub from selecting....doesn't matter if the engine is going or not in the latter case.

It's been a while, but pretty sure the pin doesn't go fully into the casting when in 5/R gate. If you wanted to test that and don't want to remove the box to be certain, I'd probably drive the roll pin out of cast steel piece, remove it, and see what it feels like pushing it up and down.

 

With cast steel piece you mean that with the red arrow, right?

With "spring" I'm refering to the spring with the blue arrow, since I put the car in second, it is free and I pushed it down, it doesn't feel strange, but as mentioned I'm not certain if it goes as deep as it should.

I will try and wash the oil around the spring out with brake cleaner, maybe I can see if there is something in there than.

 

Looking into the housing where the spring sits, there is nothing obvious:



Since there are no threads regarding this problem in the FD section, I checked some things that were mentioned in the FC section. So for example I took out the 3 cap plugs, springs and detent ***** and meassured the springs. They should be at least 22.5mm, mine where around 22mm. So I put a 2mm shim under each spring, once at a time, and tried shifting into 5th. Nothing changed. I guess its a very bad idea to shift gears with the detent ***** taken out?

The ***** all looked good, no burrs.

Than I took the select lock spindle and spring out, also everything looked fine.

Tomorrow I will take the select spindle assembly out, but after that I have no idea how to proceed.

 

At this point you should drop the trans.

Those springs pictured are super easy to remove and work with once the trans is out, I couldn't remember if you can get to them easily in the car. But it sounds like the problem may be further up somewhere.

I think it's just a 10mm bolt or two holding those springs on, nothing exotic.

Dale

 

You should be looking at the other side if 5th/R is the problem. I'd be very careful with the detents not to move anything while they're out.

Doing the rear extension housing to access 5th is probably easier than removing the box.

 

I know, I just looked into the other side, because it was easily accessible after I removed the exhaust.

The select spindle should be accessible when I remove the prop shaft.

 

With the prop shaft removed I could easily access the select spindle assembly. But it is not causing the problem. Even with the assembly removed, I could not shift into 5th and reverse.

 

The shift spindle and spring can be accessed from beneath the car, but it's a pain. It's probably not those however and more likely internal to your gearbox.

 

If you don't see anything up top in the shifter causing a bind, you'll need to drop the tranny and crack it open. Either something is up with the 5th/rev spindle select fork or a shift hub is bad. Had it happen to me, back in the younger/dumber days, I pushed it into 5th gear while redline 4th with a cracked syncro and ended up fusing the teeth on the 5th/rev sleeve to 5th gear. Trans was stuck in gear, was able to force it back out but afterwards wasn't able to go into 5th or rev. Dropped the tranny and found the 5th/rev shift sleeve not able to slide on the hub assembly because the teeth on the ends were all messed up. Had to order the sleeve from the dealer. See item number 11 in diagram, 11 is showing the whole 5th/rev shift hub assembly, I had to replace the clutch sleeve, syncro, and one gear. If you are going to crack your tranny open, first focus on the shift rods and fork to see if any roll pins worked its way out and causing a bind or if a fork is broken, if not, check the 5th/rev hub assembly, the assembly is sandwiched between the 5th and rev syncros. I could only find my receipt for the clutch sleeve but it does give a part number for the sleeve and possibly give you a starting point to look for parts (r501-17-732a) The part number is over 20 years ago so there might be newer revision for the part. Anyway, back then that was a daily driver and parts took a couple of weeks so I remember freeing up the sleeve by cutting down the teeth on the sleeve and making sure everything slides smoothly so I can drive the car while waiting for the parts to come in. It gave me reverse back but 5th gear was a no go unless I pushed the shifter and hold the shifter in gear otherwise it would jump out.

 

I'm just impressed you had your invoice from 1998

Dale

 

Thanks Dale,

For the first couple of years, I was pretty good with all the receipts for the car, parts manager at the dealer made fun of me when I told him I had a binder full of receipts. I was there so often that he even told me that having too many records of parts for the car might actually bite me in the end, every single known common problem with the car I probably experience by late 1990's. I don't even know what the prices are nowadays and I don't even want to know but found a receipt for one of reman engine I got from the dealer at a discounted price of $1676.80, (after core and engine container return) I think I kept most of the parts receipts back then and my first year insurance statement just a reminder what a money pit the car was