possible gearbox problem...
 

i have a manual 97 civic, and lately it's been acting sort of weird. whenever i go to shift into third gear and it's above about 4000 rpms, it sort of grinds through the gears, making that sound it makes when you try to force a shift. only difference is it doesn't put up too much resistance and it slips right in.

kind of difficult to explain, but i was wondering if any of you have had or have heard of the same issue. maybe the syncronizing mechanism isn't working right?

maybe your clutch is starting to go.

sometimes worn engine mounts can cause a shifting problem, but if you try gm's synchromesh FM and it goes away then yeah its probably the synchro's.

My thoughts exactly

god bless synchromesh FM

can someone explain syncromesh fm?

gm makes two versions of their synchromesh tranny fluid, a regular version, and a friction modified version. You want the friction modified version. I guess it just has a better "healing effect". But it takes time (like a week or two) and it usually doesn't come cheap. The GM dealer wanted to charge me like 11.50 a fucking quart and i talked him down to 10 ;) Well worth the cash though. Any GM dealer should have it. If you need to, search for it on honda tech for the part number

Its a synchro bandaid - coats them and magically makes the grinding (slight grinding) go away after around 100miles.
In no way does it fix the problem and in no way do I know how it really works

yeah i forgot to say that

fixed my grinding problem almost immediatly in my civic, and worked the whole time I had that tranny in the car. its called a "band-aid" but i really haven't heard of anyone who has used it and had their grind come back. the only time i did hear of a grind come back it turned out they werent using the FM.

awesome, thanks a lot... i'm going to have to check that out now...