mr. dude

Seriously though, it is good advice to have a partner help you when doing a tranny job. My brother helped me out with mine, one of us held it in place while the other tightened the bolts. I can tell ya the two bolts that attach the transaxle cross-member to the chassis on top were a friggin pain to get to because there is literally no room to get your hand back there. Everything else was pretty easy.

nh7cy

Blipping the gas while shifting is an alternative to relying on your syncros to match your engine's speed to your transmission's and get you through your shift smoothly. Since you have a bad syncro, this would help.

roman944

grind and 1st/2nd gear syncros is a common problem for all german cars, not just 944

Audi S4's and A6's have this same problem, very common

if you want to make it last as long as you can, you can do what you have been doing, trying to avoid the grind, but if the problem is still there it might get worse over time and you will still have to fix it, there is no way to tell how bad it is right now anyways, and it wouldn't be nice to end up on a side of a road waiting to be towed

drive it as it is now, and do what you can to avoid grind, but keep an eye out, and buy, a new transmission, or plan ahead how you want this one fixed, so that once this one is done, you are not out of a car (unless its winter time)

Yummybud924

today I drove the car around all day and I grinded going into second only once. I just go faster in first and then shift to second gear quickly and no grinding, all other gears are fine also and with the mt-90 it's pretty smooth.

it will still grind if I don't shift it "right" I guess.

do you guyes really think the transmission will get worse and just blow up on me?

I'm guessing it can still go for many more miles / years before needing replacement.

the car just hit 250,000 kms today and I"m hoping it will go over 300,000...

i basicly want it to last me through university until I graduate.

944CS

worst case, you can't shift into 2nd anymore and need a new trans. Used N/A trans' are cheap, I just got two for $100 bucks

ausgeflippt951

The reason you're having an easier time of shifting when you do it quickly is most likely due to two things:

1) the revs are higher, i.e. 3000. This is where they should be anyway. Any lower (especially while in higher gears) and you put undue stress on the gears and wear the tranny much quicker. These cars like to be driven at or above 3k. So as a rule of thumb, if you're driving down the road and you find yourself pressing fairly hard on the gas pedal while below 2500, you need to upshift.

2) you're not allowing time for the revs to fall. The way it sounds, you shift so damn slowly that the revs had already fallen, thus giving the synchros a harder time due to the relative speed discrepancy. Try this: as you're upshifting, keep the revs up the whole time, but slow your actual shifting down considerably. This will be the easiest on the transmission and my bet is that you'll get no grinding. Synchros have an easier time at doing their job when the engine speed and the gear speed are equal.



Do you have an owner's or shop manual for your car? In both the owners manual and the official shop manual, they actually give you their recommended shifting points. Which are right around 3000 rpm. I'll try to scan you a picture if I can.

alordofchaos

This is my theory, too. The revs are falling, just not as far as they would when you shift slowly. When you shift quickly, it sounds like your RPMs are matching what they should be to match the transmission speed.
I keep electronic copies of the '87 and '83 owner's manual here;
scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the links, or right-click and 'save as'

If you need a shop manual, send me a PM

Drewsifer

I was thinking about this today, because I was having a similar problem in my car. I tried to shift slowly and easily, but got some grinding and even some bucking. So I started trying new things. I found that by pressing the clutch in only as far as I need it, and then shifting quickly and smoothly into the next gear rewarded me with grind and buck free changes.

Rich Sandor

Let me drive it, I'll tell you what's wrong with it.