grinding gears?

well, I’ve heard numerous people on the goat forums have problems with grinding 2nd and reverse gears when the trans is still somewhat cold (and I seem to be having this problem aswell) even with the clutch all the way to the floor. I’m just wondering how much abuse like that a trans can take and it makes me cringe when I do it, which isnt alot… but still.

If it’s an occasional thing, will it really do much damage? I try to let the car warm up to full, or close to full, operating temp before driving it and stuff, but in some situations I don’t have that much luxury (on lunch at work for example)… Shifting into second this afternoon it did it again and I don’t want to be driving a ticking time bomb, even though the car has a warrenty. A few of the guys reccomended that I change the trans oil which should help it a little me thinks.

what are your thoughts on this?

Redline MT-90 >*

But read goat forums for feedback specific to your car.

you could always do a 1-3 shift til the car warms up.

Reverse on the T56 doesn’t always engage perfectly. I’ve seen several people mention it on ls1gto.com. On mine I was grinding reverse about once a month until I started paying close attention when shifting. Since then I haven’t done it once. Obviously this only happens at a dead stop since it’s reverse. One trick is to keep pressure on the shifter when you first start releasing the clutch in case, in case it’s not all the way into reverse. As soon as the clutch starts to engage you’ll feel it pop into gear with no grinding.

2nd gear however, I’d be a little worried. If you’re grinding there I think something is wrong with a syncro. With the car moving and all the gears turning the syncro should be taking care of that. Got any warranty left?

yeah… I got it as a certified pre-owned gm, so I have a 100K miles/5 year drivetrain warrenty. I just don’t like dropping it off at the dealer :\

I’ll call culligan and see what they say about it

edit:Made an appointment with them for Friday… hopefully they find something as I don’t want to shell out 90.00 for nothing :\

yea i did the 1-2 shift in that car very slowly and easy, with the clutch down all the way…going like 20 mph or so and it was grinding the one time

i dunno i dont think it should have at that speed

dont shift fast when its cold and make sure you are in gear before you left go of the clutch. :gotme:

1-3?

also, you may do this already, but before you put it in reverse work it through 1-4 a little.

do people read the thread? lol

three different people drove this car yesterday and all 3 had the same thing happen, i didn’t see fuzzy or steve do anything wrong when shifting it when it was grinding, it was not a driver error, cause when it happened to me i made sure that i was pushing the clutch down all the way

like skurge said… he was driving it niiiiice and eaaaasy (his car has pretty much the same trans) and it did the same thing. hopefully it isnt a syncro or something.

I do usually do the 1-3 shift, but sometimes in some situations you really do need 2nd gear.

at any rate, hopefully the dealer is able to take care of it

unless something got changed in the gtos, that is not normal for a t56

I got $20 bucks that the dealership “can’t reproduce the problem” or says it’s normal. I’d either baby it to try and keep it from becoming a nagging problem or beat the shit out of it to get it to fail while under warranty.

[quote=“jeeves744,post:11,topic:26226"”]

unless something got changed in the gtos, that is not normal for a t56

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I would of thought the same thing, but when I posted about it on the GTO forums, alot of people (some even with brand new cars) seemed to have the same problem. Not sure whats different though

from what I read, it’s pretty much the same internals as the Z06 trans, with a different housing

bikerfry… thats what I’m scared about :frowning:

i’ll break it :wink:

it will be fun i swear

Its a somewhat new car, you shouldn’t have to baby it at all, even with the cold weather, cold oil in the gearbox or whatever.

If you have the clutch to the floor, and its griding the 1-2 when cold, yeah thats a problem.

There shouldn’t be any tricks to driving it, if its fucking up something is wrong.

I hope the dealer can reproduce the problem, and they don’t send you on your way with a “just drive it, its fine” diagnosis.

Steve, bring it over let me take it for a spin.

Most of the stuff I’ve read about bad shifting when cold is just that the shifter is a bit stiff. There shouldn’t be any problems with grinding, you just have to pull harder on the shifter for the first few miles. I know that’s how mine is.

the problem is, when me and fuzzy drove the car, we had just gone for about an hour cruise, so the tranny was nice and warm then

yeah… on second thought, what I think I’m gonna do… so I don’t waste $$$ only to have them tell me that they can’t find a problem is just cancel the apointment and drive her for a while… if second goes… no biggie, it’s covered and then they can’t tell me that it’s normal/or can’t find a problem… if not, all the better.

just one question A cam/headers won’t void the warrenty on the trans will it?

It depends on the dealership. I personally would never mod a car under warranty. It would be too easy for them to say that the extra power caused the transmission failure. Now if you were willing to convert it back to stock before you brought it in, should it ever fail…

[quote=“BikerFry,post:19,topic:26226"”]

I personally would never mod a car under warranty. It would be too easy for them to say that the extra power caused the transmission failure. Now if you were willing to convert it back to stock before you brought it in, should it ever fail…

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That’s the problem I’m having right now. My car would really come alive with an intake, some long tube headers and a cam. But it’s only got 7k miles on it and lots of warranty left. I’m going to wait it out, maybe do some suspension stuff over the summer in anticipation of more power later on.