First gear completely blocked

[Biscuitpie]

My shifter will not go into first no matter what. The typical shifting to another gear first, double clutching, rolling a little, etc do not work. I drove for 20 mins and could never enter the gear. If I push kinda hard, it moves a little but doesn't go in and kinda gets stuck. I don't want to try pushing too hard...

Obviously, I'll go to the dealer, but I have to go out of town for a week, so just wondering if anyone has any info that will put my mind at ease for now I guess. I believe first doesn't have a synchro, and I'm not sure how first gear could possibly get damaged on a stock car, so I'm inclined to believe it's either a clutch system or shifter cable issue. But to only affect first seems strange. The car only has 5k miles. Has anyone ever had something like this happen?

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[cryptolime]

never heard of this happening. i'd check the shift cable to see if it's snagged on something or frayed.

 

[mbaapk]

I call BS.

 

[TypeRD]

Ok, so you’ve driven the car for 5k miles with no problems until now. Clearly you’re used to driving it and know how it should work and feel. I agree, it sounds like a shifter problem. I highly doubt there is anything seriously wrong with the trans.

 

[RP2000R]

Any mods on the car?

 

[TW00Si]

I had this problem on my S2000 after 80k miles on the original transmission. So I was told that it’s the synchro and gear getting “burs”. If you go to second gear and jam it into first with force it will go in and you will need to go back and forth from first to second multiple times to get the burs off. What happened to my S2000 was driver error. I would skip gears at times. I was told to always row gears up and down. Never skip a gear.

 

[Biscuitpie]

I call BS.

Wish I had this much free time

 

[Biscuitpie]

Any mods on the car?

Nope

 

[Biscuitpie]

I had this problem on my S2000 after 80k miles on the original transmission. So I was told that it’s the synchro and gear getting “burs”. If you go to second gear and jam it into first with force it will go in and you will need to go back and forth from first to second multiple times to get the burs off. What happened to my S2000 was driver error. I would skip gears at times. I was told to always row gears up and down. Never skip a gear.

Funny enough, I have an S2K with 120k miles and absolutely 0 transmission issues.

 

[RP2000R]

Nope

Look around and see if anything outta place under the hood by the trans.

 

[Biscuitpie]

Look around and see if anything outta place under the hood by the trans.

Yeah, good idea, I'll take a look when I'm back in town. Still curious if anyone has ever experienced an issue like that with just one gear

 

[Biscuitpie]

I had some time, so I decided to investigate a little. Nothing blocking the cables near the transmission. I tried manually changing the gears on the tranny side with no luck. The bigger shifter arm thingy on the front side easily goes into every gear but first. I even disconnected the cable that was on that arm as well as manually depressing the clutch fork with no luck. I'm no mechanic, but it sounds like it's fucked.

Linking a video of it in action. You can see I go into third and fourth and second easily, but first won't go and even gets stuck coming out.

 

[cryptolime]

I had this problem on my S2000 after 80k miles on the original transmission. So I was told that it’s the synchro and gear getting “burs”. If you go to second gear and jam it into first with force it will go in and you will need to go back and forth from first to second multiple times to get the burs off. What happened to my S2000 was driver error. I would skip gears at times. I was told to always row gears up and down. Never skip a gear.

if you do skip gears, make sure to double-clutch. takes the load off the synchros.

 

[CyberCTR]

Anything done to the car recently?

I had work done on my Injen CAI on my rsx type s, which is in the front left wheel well, and it ended up pushing against my clutch which prevented me from going into first and third gear.

 

[007]

We shouldn't have to shift gears in sequence to prevent the gears from freezing. That's ludicrous. I've been skipping gears in my M cars for two decades and have never had transmission issues.

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