kop-O-nen

Ok. This is kind of a long story, and english is not my spoken language but I´ll try and make it as understandable as possible.

I got my S last spring, it had done around 130.000km.s. I drove it for about 5000km before changing my Transmission oil. I used Redline MTL for the change.
About a month from the oil change I noticed the problem occur for the first time. I had been driving for about 100km on the freeway, when I had to slow down for a roadwork. I changed down to fifth at around 100km/h, and slowed down to around 60km/h before attempting to go for 4th. But I couldn´t get the gear out of 5th no matter how hard I tried to pull on the gear lever. I could only get it out of fifth once I accelerated to about 80 km/h. Then it would work as nicely as ever, no work at all needed to change the gear. At first it occured every now and then, but started to become more and more common. The next step was that it wouldn´t let me even put the gear onto 5th if I was under 80km/h. At higher speeds 5th would go in nicely. It wouldn´t even go in if the car was stationary and the clutch depressed (No matter if the engine was running or not.). This was the case for most of the summer, I had to skip 5th and always change from 4th to 6th.
When I drove the car to it´s winter storage about a month ago, I did one faster run on the way. After changing from 4th to 6th the box got stuck on 6th so that I had to use a lot of force to get the gear lever out of 6th..

I´ve prepared myself for getting a new gearbox this winter and ditching the old one, but I still wanted to ask before spending over $1500 in a new box if anyone had any ideas on what the problem could be?
I dont think it´s syncro related, because I figure the gears should go in nicely with the engine turned off/or by rev matching while changing. In this case rev matching did nothing to the problem. And when the gears went on they worked 100%, no extra noises or anything.

Thanks for any help!

Oh, and I think I´m to blame for some part.. I was foolish before and didn´t know that the S2000 box doesn´t like skipping gears, for most of the time before these problems occured I would often redline 1st and 2nd, and then change straight up to 5th... I do know now that it isn´t a wise thing to do, and I´m pretty sure that´s what broke the box in the first place...

Billman250

You developed burrs on the 6th gear side of the 5th-6th gear drive cog, and skip shifting made it worse.

With the car cold in the morning, row the shifter from 5th to 6th about 100 times. Sometimes, you will get lucky and knock down the burrs and the transmission will fix itself. This must be done after the car sits overnight and has not been started, so most of the oil has drained off the cog. you want a dry cog for this fix.

Afterwards, OPERATING the car under load in 5th gear and 6th gear (WOT then off then on) will further flatten thwe burrs and could possibly cure it completely.

There's a thread title about a guy losing 5th gear after a track day, I told a lot of this issue in that thread.

Billman250

It is very easy to think that skip shifting has no bad effects on the trans. But believe me, it does. you are making the syncro, and the cog, engage the gear under opposing speeds that they were not designed to do.

Now if you ROW the trans (put it in 5th without letting clutch out) into 5th gear first, then 6th, no harm is done.

If you take 2nd gear to redline, then get lazy and want to go to 6th, if you row the trans 3-4-5-6, then let the clutch out, no harm done.

Billman250

BTW your English is better than many here

Reckon

Great advice from Billman once again!!!

davidc1

I've skip shifted all my cars and never had a problem....until the S.

I bought it at about 65,000mi. Previous owner never skip shifted. I did it as usual. Within 15,000 mi I lost 5th gear. It was like a brick wall. All the tips and tricks I read on the forum didn't work. I just resigned myself to never having 5th. It's actually pretty easy to get around without it unless you track your car on courses were top speeds are over 115mph or so.

After about another 35,000mi, suddenly I got it into 5th. It was right after I started the car as Billman stated. It barely went in, popped out....over about the next 15 mi and about a couple dozen shifts, it's now like butter again in and out of 5th.

Glad I didn't drop thousands on another tranny!

05thumper

Sounds like the trick is to do this with the car off. Should the clutch be in or out in this process or does it matter?

n!trox

i have the problem with getting out some gears difficultly only when im breaking or when i stop and a high gear is in,
then it can be difficult to get it out sometimes.

ist this normal due to breaking and reving down the engine or should i be concernded?

@billman: thanks for the tips - is that problem an issue of the sync or what parts of the trans especially?

paul2011s2000

I don't have problems getting out of gear, my transmission is very easy/smooth. Sounds like either you've been skipping gears when shifting up like these guys or your clutch plate is dragging due to rust on the transmission input shaft.

n!trox

could you please explain your actions to fix your problem a lil bit more exactyl ?

is the problem with difficult out getting gears an issue of the sync-rings oder something more expensive / bigger???


i do know that skip shifting while downshifting is unhealthy,
bit i didnt know that its unhealthy while upshifting...

are you sure that skipping gears at upshifting is really unhealthy??