Stuart-
You say that you must shift slowly to avoid grinding gears...
Assuming no noises, or "bits" coming out with the oil, your problems may be
worn synchros.
Unfortunately, about 6 or 8 years ago there was a batch of very
"soft" synchros being sold on the market. These units looked the same as any
other synchro, but wore out very rapidly. There wasn't any way to tell if the
units were good or bad by looking at them, and for the casual user, you would
never know of the problem until some time later when the synchros wore out
prematurely. It sound as though this is what has occurred on your
transmission, as these syncros were sold in large amounts and were about all
you could get for some period of time. If your PO got a set from a source
that still had these on the shelf, I would guess that this is the problem.
If you have the top cover off the trans, you can check the amount of wear in
the synchros directly. The synchro rides on small ridges on the inside of the
synchro and on a tapered extension on the front of each gear. Locate a
synchro (the brass colored ring in front of a gear), and using light
pressure, push/pull the hub (the part the internal shift fork fits into)
toward the gear so that the synchro is squeezed between the hub and gear. The
brass synchro ring should not be within about 1/8" of the gear face. If
the synchro is closer than that, it is pretty much shot. Check all of the
synchro rings against all of the gears, you may find that the worst one may
be actually touching the gear face. This is a worst case scenario, that
synchro would not be able to synchronise that gear at all.
If that is indeed what you find, start saving your money for a rebuild...
Hope you can figure out what I'm tryin to say here, as I find it almost
impossible to talk without the use of both hands...
If not, email me directly and perhaps I can explain further
Short on Synchronization Myself
Nick in Nor Cal
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