Shifing from 1st to 2nd..Grindage

[rizla1]

I just recently purchased a 99' Esprit and have had it for about a month now. When first purchased the car did everything as advertised. Soon after the purchase the car had trouble shifting into second gear either up from 1st or down from 3rd. The clutch is all the way in and I still have a grind, it does'nt happen all of the time just about once maybe twice every 30 minutes of driving. I have tried keeping my RPM's up and I have tried double clutching but the problem still is here. Does anyone have any ideas of what might be the cause of this problem?

[cnh1990]

Did you check the fluid level? If it is low you could have sucked air into it.

Did you bleed the clutch line of any bubbles that might be in there?

Were you hard on the car?

For instance do a hard shift into 2nd and perhaps release the clutch before 2nd was fully seated?

[rizla1]

It happens when I down shift, as well at low speeds. But to answer your question yes, It happened under fast acceleration and sometimes under slow acceleration. What gets me the most is when it does it while i'm slowing down quite normally and just try to shift into second to continue at slow speed. I have not checked any of the fluids myself but took it to the shop last week for them to check all the fluids. Who knows what they checked except for the usual coolant,oil,windshield,etc....

[cnh1990]

Sometimes if one drives the car very very hard (could have been the previous owner) the 2nd gear syncro takes a beating as it is the Esprit weak spot. One would have either have had to apply hard acceleration before 2nd gear was fully seated or released the clutch too early as in mid shift to damage the tranny. I suppose if the engine/car speed was way mismatched it could do it also, but it would have been a serious miss shift and error in driving judgement to break the tranny. But we have all seen it done before.

Without seeing the car in person I would tend to think it would be a clutch problem. I would check the clutch master fluid level. If the fluid has not been replaced in a while, change it and perform the bleeding proceedure. I suppose if you did not want to change the fluid you could just bleed the system of any bubbles in the fluid. Check the clutch adjustment/clearence to see if it is in specification.

Also what is the mileage of your car. I seem to recall the V8 clutch being worn out and replaced by some around the 30K mark. How about it V8 guys when have you had to replace it? I have a good idea how long a SE 4 cyl goes for. But I only know of a couple of V8's that have had their clutch's replaced and thats not enough to come up with an average.

[bazer]

have you sorted the dreaded red pipe syndrome. just done it on my s4 and it is now a dream.

[kmaier]

bazer said:

have you sorted the dreaded red pipe syndrome. just done it on my s4 and it is now a dream.

The early 1997 V8 had a short section of red hose from the clutch master to the front of the box frame section (about 3-feet long) then attached to a steel line which ran to the rear to the clutch slave. In 1998 that changed when the master and slave cylinders were updated and it's now an all-steel line from the master to the slave in the rear sans a short flexible section that's around 6-inches long.

Regards, KM
2000 V8

>> Edited by kmaier on Wednesday 2nd March 14:21