Hey guys, I recently noticed a few shifting problems that don't seem too healthy. The first is when I shift from first to second. It doesn't engage smoothly. It seems to bump and I would have to put more effort putting it in second. It doesn't grind but it does make a bump sound and its sorta hard to put in second. The second problem is the neutral. When I move to shifter to the right on neutral it returns to the middle perfectly fine, but when I move the shifter to the left on neutral, it just stays there. the shifter doesn't pop back to the middle. please help!

 

Man im having the same exact problem with my trans when shifting from 1st to 2nd. This trans only had 8000 miles on it

 

yea! The shifting doesn't make me feel too good =[. The netural is starting to worry me

 

Mine doesn't have the Nuetral issue, but I notice a "notchy" 2nd so to speak. I will be changing out my gear fluid later this winter, as I have noticed after the car warms up the issue or notch goes away.

 

This.

Cold weather + dirty? fluid can contribute to notchy shifts.

Moreso if you have a short shifter.

 

the weird thing is that its only 1st to second.

 

i had brand new fluid in mine and it does get better when the trans warms up but I think mine got damaged during shipping. I would like to know the potential causes other than dirty fluid.

 

Take your car over to Rotorsports in Santa Clara and ask them to fix your shifter bushings and change the tranny fluid.
http://rotorsport2.com/

 

my dad already changed the tranny fluid. Are the shifter bushings hard to replace? My dad is a mechanic so it might be easier for him

 

The bush I'm assuming is the one at the bottom of the gear lever - relatively simple to swap, wave washers seem to crap out as well.

There are spring loaded "pins" either side of the shift lever on the extension housing that keep it in plane, which might be worth a check for one of your problems.

Pulling the extension housing might find the source of the 1/2 shift issue if there's wear, otherwise if it's syncros on those gears, quite a job.

 

Could it be my synchros for the 1-2 problem? I am not EXACTLY sure what a syncros does, but reading around I think it may be the problem... I can double clutch downshift a okay, I havent tried to play around with 1-2 soo i will update on sunday

 

If you use cheap gear oil many times you'll have weird shifting problems. The synchros need the right amount of friction to do their job.

I've always used Redline MT90 gear oil. About $8 a quart, you need 3 quarts. Using cheap parts store gear oil will give odd results.

The return to neutral is a spring in the shifter housing. I know the spring to return to neutral from 5th/reverse is an easily accessible spring from the bottom of the car. I can't remember how the other spring is set up. I know on FC's that spring constantly breaks, they did a better design on the FD's tranny so it is less of a problem.

Regardless, fixing that shouldn't be too bad. As in it can be done with the tranny in the car and parts won't be too pricey.

Dale