3rd gear grinds!

1slowdsm · 04-28-2005

Okay, I FINALLY got my car back and I guess it was the pivot ball that was keeping the clutch from disengaging. So now that I have that problem taken care of I have yet ANOTHER problem to solve and I need some help on this one as I know nothing about this.
Everything I try to downshift into 3rd gear I get nothing by grinding noise. Once I leave 3rd gear, there is no coming back to it at all unless I go to a complete stop and start all over again. Even with the clutch pressed in ALL the way and the shifter ALL the way in 3rd gear. I emailed the guy who sent me the tranny (TRE) and am asking him the same question. In the mean time I'm hoping to get some information from you guys here so I can get this problem solved. I dont want to end up screwing up my 3rd gear before the tranny is even broken in. Which brings me to ask: How long should I drive to break in the tranny? But back to the 3rd gear thing. Is it the 3rd gear inside the tranny that's messed up or could it possibly be the shifter cables? If anything, I want to avoid taking off the tranny and having to send it back to TRE to have it re-rebuilt and sent back to me.

**Kracka** · 04-28-2005

Sounds like you'll be sending it back to me. If 1,2,4,5, and R are all engaging properly that should eliminate it being the cables. If it is a faulty tranny make sure TRE pays for the shipping both ways...good luck getting it back before the snow flies next fall!

BTW, everytime you grind 3rd gear you're rounding off the teeth.

TheBlizzard · 04-28-2005

If third gear is the only one grinding then I would just skip that gear until you get it fixed if you need to drive the car. Other than that Chris is right, good luck getting that thing back from TRE.

CRAIG

1slowdsm · 04-28-2005

What? Damn, I've already had enough fricken problems with the car. Now I have to send it back to them....argh! This really sucks. Why would it take so long for them to send the tranny back? It only took the guy two days to build it and about a week to get here. I dont get it.

**Kracka** · 04-28-2005

TRE has notoriously bad/slow customer service. It took me 3-4 months to get a turbo I ordered from him (I paid for it right away and was told they were in stock and ready to ship). Consider yourself very lucky getting your tranny built in 2 days.

unreal808 · 04-28-2005

My mom told me that if you don’t have anything good to say than don’t say anything .

So, I shouldn’t say anything about TRE , outher than, Any one who takes on rebuilding a notoriously weak transaxle for a living has a hard life.

1slowdsm · 04-28-2005

Then I must've ordered it at the right time when they werent busy or something, that's why I got it quicker than usual..haha. I'm e-mailing the guy right now and he think it might be clutch related or related to the shifter cables. The only time I can't get into third is from downshifting, but if I downshift to 2nd and then to 3rd, its fine. I'm just scared of going to the track and grinding on 3rd if I shift quickly to it. If that happens, it wont be long till I need a new 3rd gear. And if I cant use 3rd gear at the tracks, then it was a waste of money for everything I bought for the car to race at the track...bummer.

*Edit*The guy read my post and he isnt with TRE. I wonder how I got his e-mail from the site. That's why for the past month and a half I thought he was part of TRE. Now, another problem to solve...where the heck did I get his e-mail from that made me think he was with TRE.

**Kracka** · 04-28-2005

So you sent your tranny to be rebuilt by some unknown guy?

A//// Guy · 04-28-2005

Well how did you pay for it?? You should have recieved a bill from "TRE" and not a single person....

This is strange...

1slowdsm · 04-28-2005

I had some guy (who I thought was with TRE) rebuilt a stock tranny for me and I payed in PayPal (which I thought was strange for a company like TRE also). I still dont know how I got his e-mail. The only sites I remember looking at were ShepRacing and TRE for transmissions. So pretty much I did have get my new tranny from some unknown guy. Do you guys think that my adjusting the clutch pedal a little would help with this problem? I still dont get how it could Not downshift into 3rd, but upshift into 3rd fine. I'm not any smart with transmissions also, so I know VERY little.

A//// Guy · 04-28-2005

Who knows if he even rebuilt the tranny? You have no proof and no receipt and no idea who the guy is... If you can shift into every gear except third something internally is wrong with the trans. Cables are fine if you can shift all gears except 3 and pedal height should be fine too. All gears would grind if it was the clutch.

1slowdsm · 04-29-2005

It's not that I can't shift into 3rd at all, I just can't downshift into 3rd

. So no highway races for me for a while...ha haha. I'll drive around a little more and see if I can get past the problem without having to never downshift into 3rd. Does anyone know what could cause my car to be overheating? I just changed the thermostat and it's still past the the halfway mark.

TheBlizzard · 04-29-2005

Headgasket is going would be my guess. Talk a decent size drive and then see if you are pushing coolant into your overflow bottle. Either that or your fan/fans aren't working properly.

CRAIG

**Kracka** · 04-29-2005

Hows your radiator? Possibly your radiator has a lot of build-up inside it and with a FMIC (I'm assuming you have one?) its getting even less air.

1slowdsm · 04-30-2005

I dont think it would be my fans, since the temperature needle doesnt move down when the fans are running (I dont have a FMIC BTW). A coolant flush didnt help (using a machine from work) with the temperature also and the coolant didnt look really dirty. My guess was the head gasket also. I was blowing out very little white smoke from my exhaust when my car was running before it broke down. Now I havent gotten the chance to get on the throttle so I can't tell if I'm blowing more white smoke or not. Hmm...I'm going to need a timing belt and water pump replacement along with the headgasket change...wow...$$$!

niterydr · 05-01-2005

Hmm..usually they don't upshift, but downshift, my guess would be an abmormally worn slider, maybe the syncro as well, either way its confined to that one shaft is my guess. 4th gear works okay?
2nd?
About the overheating, have a leakdown test done, that will tell you if you have a headgasket problem. How many miles do you have on the water pump? When they fail, coolant doesn't 'disapear' it leaves a nice trail inside the timing belt cover and exits by the crank pully

.
The factory heat gauge is a guestimate at best, make sure the mixture is consistant and there isn't any air bubbles. Also, which degree thermostat did you put in?
How are the wires around the t-stat housing?

1slowdsm · 05-01-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by niterydr

How are the wires around the t-stat housing?

What do you mean by that? I'll check for coolant leaks today after work. Or have QPR do a leaktest on it one of these days. I know I have an oil leak around the timing belt side, but if coolant was mixed with it, I wouldnt be able to tell. I go the 190 degree thermostat or somewhere around that and I've never changed the waterpump since I got it and that was at 76,000 (three years ago), now I'm at a little over 108,000.

It's weird, I just found out that if I downshift into second for a couple seconds then it'll shift into 3rd like normal, but if I go straight from 5th or 4th to 3rd it'll only grind.