Need tranny help, Badly! Options

[Negative]

I posted this on someone else's thread but noone answered. Last night it was really cold and seemed alot worse. Don't know if it was the cold or just wearing more but it felt a little better this morning.
Last night I seriously thought I was fixing to break the plastic mounting bracket under my shifter.:

My tranny has really started acting up lately. It used sometimes be hard to put into first until I came to a dead stop. Now it's hard to get into any gear at all. It feels like I'm gonna break the stick or the plastic mount underneath. If the car is rolling it feels like it is hard to get in and then will just drop in. If I forget to put it in 1st before I stop rolling to a stop it feels really hard to get in but will go in. Someone told me I need to change out a plastic bushing at the tranny where the linkage goes and that it is due to slamming into gear when racing.

Any ideas?
Please help me out before i break something.

[Negative]

Noone knows anything? I was hoping to fix this this weekend but IDK what this could be. I checked the linkage under the shifter and it seems to be working fine. I'm starting to see where the pastic is stretching and turning kinda whiter.
I could really use soem help before I break anything.

[bindertch]

It could be the bushings and it could also be the Transmission sincronizers. Easiest way to be sure is to check out the bushings on top of the trans while someone else shifts it (while parked and engine off). Also at this time if it shifts in fine then the sincros might be bad. Try some synthetic trans fluid and see if it goes away or gets better. I am in a cold climat and it is harder to shift my truck trans when it is cold but as it warms up it gets easier. Hope this helps.

[alltracman78]

Bushings, shifter cables, or synchros.

How does it shift with the engine off?
If it shifts fine it is most likely the synchros.
If not, probably the cables or bushings.

How many miles are on the car?
Original trans?

[Negative]

Ok - didn't get your replies untill this morning. This weekend I popped the bezil around the shifter and drove around like that to observe whatever I could. It also warmed up considerably this weekend. Now it's still rougher than when I got the car but waay better than last week. Also thought about how does it shift with the engine off - effortless. So it's probably the infamous syncros huh?
I'll get some syncromesh and see if that helps. Still have to order that stuff or does Pep Boys, Autozone O'reilleys or Advanced Auto carry it?

[alltracman78]

Some carry, some you will have to order.

[Negative]

BTW - The car only has 95K on it and I've actually done all the suggested maintenance and then some. I do race quite often though and I push my car hard to win so probably just helped our crappy syncros along. All my Toyota friends have had this at one point or another. My symptoms just seem different then theirs.
Any other ideas what this could be?

[alltracman78]

For starters, if you "race quite often", you can't blame a economy engine/trans for problems... These are sporty cars, but other than the Alltrac they didn't get sporty engines/trans.....
Old Celicas [pre 92] have relatively weak synchros. Newer ones are good.

Well, I can't look at the car myself, so I can't give you a definitive answer, but usually when it shifts fine with the engine off, but is hard to shift with it on means the synchros.
It's possible your clutch is going.
It still could be the linkages or cables.

Is your clutch fluid full?
Have you bled it and replaced all the fluid with new?
It's just brake fluid and will absorb water, lessening it's pressurizing capabilities.

[Negative]

IDK - This is my 2nd 5S Celica and I think the engine/tranny are just fine for small races. My 86 GTS with 3S-GTE swap held up great too. Also I hang out with a large group of Toyota owners and at some point or another they all end up with syncro problems. This includes the Turbo MR2 and Supra guys so the syncros aren't that great still.
I'm gonna change the fluid to Syncromesh and bleed the clutch and see what's up. The clutch is only 45K old but beat on. I seriously doubt it's the clutch as it still grabs beautifully.
I have a pretty fair amount of mechanical skill and a lot of experience with Celicas and "S" Series motors/trannys. My original problem was that the symptoms are weird. I also noticed today it was almost perfectly smooth and it's yet another seasonable day. I wonder if the cold is effecting the problem that badly. I guess I'll wait for another cold day to see what happens before I change the fluids.

[alltracman78]

The 5S is a very stout engine.
The trans is pretty tough too.
I agree 100%.

It can take alot of small races.
But it DOES wear it out faster. Even my trans is the same way. The harder I run it, the more wear it puts on it.

The colder it is, the harder it will be to shift [relatively]. The fluid in your trans is thicker the colder it is. Thicker fluid slows down the synchros.
If you notice, synchromesh is really thin. Not quite ATF, but much thinner than the 80W 90 Toyota recommends for our trans. Which is the main reason it improves shifts. Other reasons too, but it wouldn't do half as much if it was as thick as gear oil.
The only problem is, the thinner the fluid is, the less protection the gear teeth have.

[Negative]

That's what I was thinking too. So in the long run this may preserve the length of time I have left on these syncros but cause other wear. I'm a lubrication engineer so you are now talking my language here. LOL.
BTW - It's still shifting well today. IDK WTF? I think maybe some of the wires I had running around the shifter were getting in the way perhaps. I couldn't find any but I tied them off anyway. Had been meaning to do that but just never got around to it. Doesn't explain why it was shifting easy when the engine was off though.
I'm gonna just wait and see what happens when it gets cold again.