Trying to figure out MTX shifting difficulty.

[Holiday]

So I noticed that when I shift into gears initially I have to push through some resistance near the final 1/3 of the gear travel. If I then take the shifter out of that gear, into neutral, then push it back into that same gear it slots in smooth with no resistance. Not sure what causes this. It's like there is a misalignment that only gets corrected ounce I go in and out of that gear once.

Further issues is the extra effort to get the shifter into 3rd assuredly and once I had an issue where the shifter would not go into first gear. Hoping this is not a clutch issue. A friend of mine suggested seeing if there is any difference shifting with the car off but it just felt the same. Could it be something as simple as lubrication?

 

[luigisho]

Could be. Probably have to look at bushings and linkage underneath. Cable or rod shifter? How does the mating of the shifter to the transmission look? Excessive play? Misalignment? Rod shifter to tranny boss broken? Could be pressure plate finger damage

 

[Holiday]

Rod shifter. I had a mechanic take a look at the linkage while he was fixing something else and he said it looked good though it might have been just a glance and not a thorough inspection. I should probably have it looked at more intensively. I have noticed the shifter at times, in neutral, tends to be in the 1-2 position as opposed to centered in the 3-4 position. Shifting tends to be reminiscent of cars that have notchy shifting where you feel like you have to further commit to the gear you are shifting into by pushing through some resistance. This makes quick shifts difficult without being forceful. As for third gear occasionally it's a hunt, however a few manual cars I have owned (older) seem to have this issue. Finally fifth gear seems like there is some rubbing against the enclosure of the shifter, like you can hear it.

 

[luigisho]

This part from my wayback memory comes to mind. Luckily a search found this post. Maybe it will help fix?? Not 100% without monkeying with it in person.

SHO NUT Rod Shifter Ball and Socket bushing

I ordered this from Josh @ SHO NUT Performance. Shipping was quick, and questions were answered very promptly. Today I finally got the time to install it, took me a good 90 minutes or so taking my time. I'm not that great mechanically but plugged away at it without too many headaches. Once I...

shoforum.com

 

[Holiday]

This part from my wayback memory comes to mind. Luckily a search found this post. Maybe it will help fix?? Not 100% without monkeying with it in person.

SHO NUT Rod Shifter Ball and Socket bushing

I ordered this from Josh @ SHO NUT Performance. Shipping was quick, and questions were answered very promptly. Today I finally got the time to install it, took me a good 90 minutes or so taking my time. I'm not that great mechanically but plugged away at it without too many headaches. Once I...

shoforum.com

Ah cool. Will look into that.

 

[BaySHO Performance]

If there's any slop in the rod shifter connections, it should lead to a noticeable slop in the gear lever itself.

How far off the floor is the pedal when a gear starts to engage? If it's really close to the floor, it's possible that the clutch isn't fully disengaging. If so, follow this procedure:

Adjusting the clutch cable - V6SHO

wiki.wikisho.com

Failing that, the notchiness is because of worn blocking rings in the transmission. First is usually the one that gets notchy before any of the others. As you have discovered, it goes into gear smoothly if you go back to neutral and try again. So to get first, put it initially in second, then first. If that doesn't work, push the lever gently towards first then let your foot of the clutch pedal a smidgeon until the internals start to rotate to get everything to line up.

 

[Holiday]

If there's any slop in the rod shifter connections, it should lead to a noticeable slop in the gear lever itself.

How far off the floor is the pedal when a gear starts to engage? If it's really close to the floor, it's possible that the clutch isn't fully disengaging. If so, follow this procedure:

Adjusting the clutch cable - V6SHO

wiki.wikisho.com

Failing that, the notchiness is because of worn blocking rings in the transmission. First is usually the one that gets notchy before any of the others. As you have discovered, it goes into gear smoothly if you go back to neutral and try again. So to get first, put it initially in second, then first. If that doesn't work, push the lever gently towards first then let your foot of the clutch pedal a smidgeon until the internals start to rotate to get everything to line up.

Thanks for the info. So for my car the clutch doesn't engage close to the floor. I believe it starts to engage somewhere around 1/4 to 1/3 the way out. All gears feel about the same, requiring a bit of effort to push or pull into the final resting place. Worn blocking rings sounds expensive, I assume it requires the same amount of labour as changing the clutch, yes? Are the blocking rings even replaceable with new ones or is it a matter of finding less worn ones from salvage?

 

[luigisho]

I haven't heard of full blocking ring sets or accumulating all of them for rebuild in a long time. That doesn't mean there aren't any but I can't recall the last time I heard of any getting installed. If I was looking I'd contact shosource and shonutperformance

 

[zoomlater]

The transmission would need to be opened up to replace the blocking rings. How many miles do you have on your car? I would try changing the tranny fluid or at least checking to see if the fluid is low. Recently, I was at the junkyard and I needed a shift interlock bolt for one of my spare transmissions. I planned to catch the fluid when I pulled the bolt so it didn't spill all over the ground. But to my surprised, nothing came out. The car had 250K on it, maybe that's why it was there.

 

[Holiday]

Thanks for the replies. Previous owner said there was 190,000 Km on the engine and trans. I'm going to look into the transmission fluid.

 

[Holiday]

The transmission would need to be opened up to replace the blocking rings. How many miles do you have on your car? I would try changing the tranny fluid or at least checking to see if the fluid is low. Recently, I was at the junkyard and I needed a shift interlock bolt for one of my spare transmissions. I planned to catch the fluid when I pulled the bolt so it didn't spill all over the ground. But to my surprised, nothing came out. The car had 250K on it, maybe that's why it was there.

In regards to changing the transmission fluid, deciding not to go with installing a drain plug at this moment, there seems to two options:

1) Use a vacuum pump with a line inserted into the fill hole and suck out as much fluid as possible.

2) Remove the fork interlock retaining pin bolt (13mm) and drain.

I have seen warnings as to the second method as quote: "be sure not to move the shift linkage while this pin is removed, as transmission internals will be dislocated." What exactly is meant by not moving the shift linkage? Also I just found out that the previous owner did use this method to drain the fluid and I am wondering what are the characteristics of dislocated transmission internals? I ask because I am wondering if it might relate to my current shifting issues where the shifter occasionally rests to left in neutral as oppose to dead center and also the stiffness or notchiness shifting gears.

Of the two methods which would drain most of the tranny fluid? I am not sure what fluid went in previously but I bought some Pennzoil Synchromesh to fill and am wondering if that will be ok mixing with some of the residual oil in the transmission or if I should go with standard Mercon ATF?

Thanks again for the help.

 

[zoomlater]

For option 2, do not move the stick shift in the car. I would first check the fill hole to see if there is enough fluid, stick your finger in the hole to see if the fluid is up to the bottom of the hole. I have not tried option 2 but I would think that is the quickest and gets more fluid out since it's near the bottom of the tranny. Sucking it out takes time as you have to move the hose around to get to places where the fluid is located. I have been able to get over 2 quarts out.

Have you checked the shifter linkages for excess play. Maybe some of the bushings have failed and needs to be replaced.

 

[Holiday]

Checking shifter bushings and such will be next in my list after the fluid change. If I drain via the retainer bolt I was wondering if I can add more fluid and push out some more if the old. Or perhaps better if i have the vacuum hose inserted in the retainer bolt hole to suck out more of the old fluid.

 

[zoomlater]

the holes are not that far apart, you can compare them when you look at them