What are symptoms of a bad gear synchro?

[1 Bad Snake]

What are the symptoms of a worn gear syncro? I'm having some problems shifting into second gear when I'm ******* it - which is really annoying. I noticed it the last time at the track. A quick heel-toe from 1-2 and all of a sudden it feels like the gate is blocked and it won't go into second.

I don't think its a bent fork, cause I can sit in the car at rest and shift into every gear like butter. I just notice it when I'm ******* it.

Does anybody have any ideas?

 

[Dixter]

What you are describing could be alot of things... one of them
being the transmission mounts, engine mounts ect...ect...

I had the transmission fluids changed out to synthetic's and
it helped out some.

Sychros when going bad will not allow the trans to be shifted
easily either when running it hard or normal.

You will notice synchro problems when you power down shift
too.

 

[Tom F&L GoR]

After failing my second gear and rebuilding the transmission, I would guess it's the synchro teeth on the gear. All of mine broke off; all the "good" gears had very blunt teeth. They're supposed to look like the end of a pup tent- sort of a sharp triangle.

From my 1-2 stuff, the synchro sleeve was ~OK, the rings with the friction material were good, but the teeth on the gears were worst. And most expensive.

The guy I bought my car (at 20,000 miles) from told me he drag raced (lots of 1-2 shifts in a hurry) so I guess I'm not surprised at what happened. (Mine failed at 53,000 miles) What was surprising was that <u>all</u> the gear synchros were not so great looking, although they all worked OK.

And the other thing it could be is clutch disengagement. I have a bad habit of pulling on the shifter, then stepping on the clutch, when I feel the shifter start to move (I'm pulling hard) I assume my effort will complete the shift, and I immediately let up on the clutch pedal. Bad. Try to use more clutch and see if that helps.

Good luck. My opinion now is that we should all count on a replacement transmission sometime by the second 50,000 miles.

 

[Tom and Vipers]

If you drag race and powershift, you will wear out the rings and gear nubs.

I have run transmissions with the teeth removed from the synchro ring. The only synchro action you get for street driving then is the dog preload. So to shift without grinding, you have to gingerly, more the gearshift, usually with fingertips, until the dogs are pressing the ring onto the cone. You can feel this contact, you maintain some light pressure and in a fraction of a second, the ring will grab the gear and the shifter will then move and complete its travel without further loading thru the fingers.

You can drive this way with stock synchros.

If you do, your transmission will simply never wear out.

During regular driving, there is simply no reason to "jam" the shifter into the next gear during a shift.

Another way to look at it is shift by applying a load to the shifter and not an enforced displacement. The actual load placed on the ring is what causes the wear.

Tom