Clutch or Gearbox problem

[Carrington]

Hi Guys,
 
I seem to be having an issue with my FD3. When the engine is off I can get all 5 forward gears and reverse easily, when the engine is running I can’t get 1st or reverse but can get 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th. I phoned up a gearbox specialist and enquired into how much a rebuild would be as I have never been 100% happy with the shifting of gears. He listened to the problem I was having and he said it’s my clutch that’s the problem, its not disengaging the engine enough from the gearbox to get those two gears. I thought this was strange as I had an Exedy twin plate clutch fitted 3000 miles ago. Today I bled the Clutch system thinking there might be a bubble that’s got trapped but this did nothing really. So I started the car up and let it idle up to temp in neutral, after about 10 mins I started getting 1st but still no reverse. I checked to see if the master cylinder had gone by putting it into 1st and leaving the clutch depressed to see if it slowly started moving but after 5 mins it had not. I got my brother to pop out and push my car backwards and in doing so I could get reverse but when stationry I couldn\'t.


Has anybody had this before? Im still thinking the gearbox needs a refresh.


Any ideas?

Thanks for looking.


Danny

[clive]

Hi Danny,

I fear your going to end up taking the gear box out anyway,

Couple of things reading your post,

When the car is being driven up the road the gears should shift O/K regardless of the clutch, after all driven correctly you shouldn\'t need a clutch to change gear, infact a  Mustang I had with a T10 box changed gear cleaner and faster without the clutch,

The other thing is that when rolled slightly the car went into gear which means you had revolved the gears, therefore assisting engagement  

Lastly if your clutch was not disengaging fully the clutch would be dragging and the car would be trying to drive away as soon as you got it in gear, especially with the clutch you have plus you have a fair bit of power and FD boxes don\'t last long shown a bit of real power :3Confused.

Hope this helps

[SiH]

My money is on a knacKered clutch master or slave - get under the car and have a look around them for leaks

[Carrington]

Thanks guys for the advice, I had another good look today and defo no leaks from the cluch system. And like Clive said if i was loosing pressure then the clutch would slowly engage and i would go shooting down the road or the engine would stall.
 
So its gearbox rebuild time and with my first track day in 4 weeks it should be interesting.
 
Thanks all

[TRIND-FD]

Could be your release bearing torn, Or even clutch fork cracked. Keith