transmission problems... gulp, expert diagnosis needed

ok, 97 SL2 manual. start it up cold and it'll shift fine. as soon as u start driving the transmission gets harder and harder to get into gear. eventually after anywhere from a couple minutes to an hour depending on the day it gets nearly impossible to get into any gear. i'll push real hard on 3rd gear and it wont budge until finally, if im lucky, will sorta fwump (trying to illustrate the sound it makes) into gear falling less than an inch leaving me wondering if its really in gear or not. the clutch is only 20k miles old tops and it was not driven abusively by any means. the transmission, along with the car has 70K on it, and since it was babied i don't see this being a "you killed it" sorta thing. it absolutely baffles me how this is possible. to my knowledge the transmission fluid is clean as can be but im not positive, is there a dipstick so i can check it? anyway i've never heard of anything like this before so please, if anyone has even guesses, feel free to post, all help is welcome and thank you in advance.

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a dipstick you can check your fluid with. I have a 97 SL and I know that to just get to the fluid reservoir, you have to get under the car... so I'm guessing it isn't something you can check with like your oil. It may be a problem with the gear shaft seeing as the transmission is not that old. But don't take anything I say to be fact, because I'm not an expert of any kind.

nevin

Did you check for clutch fluid in the reservoir??, it is located in the engine compartment beside the brake master. If it is low, it's most likely you have a leak somewhere. Check on that and re-post

What he said ^^^^^^^

You probably have a bad clutch master cylinder, slave cylinder or both. If one is bad, you should replace both anyway.

check the trans fluid. there is a dipstick on the top of the trans near driverside fender well. look on backside of battery below master cylinder. it will be red. it sounds like either low on fluid, or something is up with the clutch (hydrualics included). just check trans fluid first.

ok so i gotta check the transmission fluid from the red dipstick behind the battery. and also the clutch fluid near the breakmaster?? i don't know what that is but i'll check the trans fluid and post again.

nvm, just googled clutch master cylinder and read up on it. yeah that sounds like it might be it. i'll go and check both right now. thanks for all the help everyone.

alright, both fluids look on the low side but nothing too bad. the clutch fluid is barely above the min line but still def above and the trans fluid looks even better. is it possible the clutch itself is just broken? its not that old but if its not the fluid then other than the clutch idk what it could be. if the transmission wasn't aligned correctly then it wouldnt go into gear fine cold would it? then again i would think the clutch is the same way. is there any other fluid i can check? any other ideas? i'll turn the car on and wait a while to recheck the fluids when the shifting problems start to see if they get lower if that'll help.

when you check tour tranny fluid did you drive it around first or just grab the dipstick and see

i turned it on and let it idle for a little while so it wasn't dead cold but i didn't do any shifting. does that matter? i dont think the engine was warm enough to start the cooling fan or whatever that noise is, but it was pretty warm when i was reaching in for the dipstick. what causes the fluid to rise/fall, just temperature or shifting too. trans fluid pump or something like that hold fluid?

the car belongs to a friend of mine as of two weeks ago when i sold it to her. i kept this out of the original posts to keep it shorter and not give unnecessary info. the problem is her dad has now taken the car to his mechanic and they are saying its probably going to need a new clutch. they are going to look at it monday and decide then if it does. they said all the fluids check out when they looked at it briefely on thursday. so basically now unless i can convince them otherwise she's going to have to pay 1000 bucks to see if its the clutch or not. anyone think it could be the clutch after all or is there no way. cause the clutch is only 20K miles old. anyway i was talking to two of my mechanics and they both told me different things. one said syncros which doesn't make any sense since it shifts fine cold, and what like all 5 just all of a sudden are worn out? the other guy i talked to said it was probably fluid and the only way to be sure is to flush the system. he said sometimes something clogs the hydrolics even when there is plenty of fluid and if you flush the system theres a good chance that will clear it out and have it work again. any ideas anyone? cause i'd really like to save my friend 1000 bucks and not feel like an ass for selling her a car that needed huge repairs.

dont pay 1000 bucks. it cost me 529 to get my clutch replaced just the other day... i would say get it flushed and see if that fixes it. maybe there is a leak somewhere. i dont know, but odds are it's probably not the clutch if it only has 20k miles on it. unless it was installed incorrectly and is rubbing funny or something. but my advice, dont pay 1000 bucks to see if it's the clutch.

Ok, there are no hydraulics inside a manual transmission. Skip the flush, it'd be a waste of money.

What you need is a new clutch master/slave cylinder assembly. The fact that you can't get the car into gear indicates that the clutch itself is still functioning. Run, don't walk, to the mechanic that has the car now and take it away. Take it to a mechanic that knows WTF he's talking about because either he's a total moron or he's intentionally trying to rip you off.

well unfortunetly i missed the dealine and its completely out of my hands now since i left for school. im gonna call her tomorrow and see what happened but im thinkin they are going to/already did replace the clutch for close to a grand. jw though, how does the fact that i can't get it into gear indicate that the clutch is working? u mean since i get it in fine cold means it working? cuase im still really baffled by this. btw the hydrolics aren't in the transmission, they're used to power to clutch, like the hydrolics used to power breaks. i'm not trying to be a jerk or anything i am just wondering what u meant.