Shifting issues

I have a 96 geo 3 cylinder with manual 5 speed transmission. Several months ago it began having difficulty shifting into first gear. Basically it will not go into first gear unless the car is nearly stopped. Just wonder if anyone else has had this problem. Other the other gears work just fine, it is just a pain to have to come to a complete stop to put it in first all the time.

Your first gear synchronizer is shot. Short of disassembling the transmission (see my post "http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=720950";) and replacing the synchro yourself, or replacing the transmission there is nothing you can do to mechanically correct the condition.

You can however adopt a fun style of shifting known as double-clutching, to overcome the problem.

While decelerating:
1. Put the car in neutral and let off the clutch,
2. Give the engine a decent rev (experiment with this),
3. Push the clutch back in and shift into first.
This accomplishes the same thing the synchro does, but manually.
Simply put - it matches the speed of the driving gear (via the engine) to the speed of the driven gear (which spins with the speed of the tires at all times) so that you can lock them together with the gear shift. Really, give it some practice, you'll find yourself double-clutching all over the place, and doing that crazy heel-toe stuff the race car drivers do (braking while double-clutching). It works too. I taught some of the couriers to do this in some of my own cars that have failed synchros.

-MechanicMatt

Thanks for the quick reply.

Exactly how difficult is replacing the first gear synchronizer? I am somewhat mechanically inclined, just do not have many tools available at the moment, but have a few friends that do. I am sure pulling the tranny and cracking it open cannot be overly difficult, but if replacing the sync involves totally dismantaling the tranny, well, that would be a little more challenge than what I am looking for at the moment :)

Thanks for the quick reply.

Exactly how difficult is replacing the first gear synchronizer? I am somewhat mechanically inclined, just do not have many tools available at the moment, but have a few friends that do. I am sure pulling the tranny and cracking it open cannot be overly difficult, but if replacing the sync involves totally dismantaling the tranny, well, that would be a little more challenge than what I am looking for at the moment :)

Special tools to have on hand would be a gear puller and preferably a hydraulic press. You would more or less need to entirely disassemble the transmission to swap syncs.