journeyforce

Folks,

Does the manual trans on the 98-02 Accord have a first gear lock out at a certain speed?

The reason I am asking is that sometimes I will hold the clutch down and have it in neutral, to coast to a stop (i.e stop sign or light) (to save wear and tear on the brakes especially on the road which passes my home.) and as I am slowing down I put it into first gear (both because I have the clutch pedal down and am coming to a known stop

I notice that at a certain speed (say 25-30MPH) I will hold the clutch down and the car will not let me shift it into first until I am at 15mph or 20 mph (I hold down the clutch pedal the whole time.

Does this car have a safety lock out system that keeps you from putting it back into first gear at certain speed? i know most cars have a reverse lock out to keep you from going into reverse while the car is driving forward.


I am just curious on this

Thanks

L

gshock

My Accord is an AT, but I have a '90 Mazda pick up that drives similar. A family member drives an 04 Audi and it runs pretty much the same way. A lot of vehicles have a tranny that doesn't let you put it into first gear if you're moving too fast.

Also, there's a limit to how far you can jump with different gear ratios, i.e. it might just be the mechanics of the gear train that they don't want to mesh until the gears get closer to the same speed.

onthe3rdday

No lockout, and you are doing it incorrectly, but thats ok. If you are in neutral coating and you wish to grab 1st, the key is engine speed...sooo. Try this experiment. Put the car in first, drive up to about 25-30 miles per hour, and note the engine speed. I'm thinking it'lll be about 45 or 5500rpms. If put the car in neutral, the revs will drop all the way down to 1000 or 750. Blip the throttle so that the engine revs to about 4000 and it will slot into first butery smooth. Pratice a few times and it'll be easy to do.

gshock

That's what I was trying to say, but you explained it much better. Semi rigs are the same way, and even worse. The engine speed for each gear is much narrower so you have to match your rpms to your highway speed much more closely.

... Yeah, what 'onthe3rdday' said!

AFAccord

Do not try to force it into gear. You are pressing the synchro against the gear when you do so. Since the engine is spinning slowly (at idle), and the transmission is trying to spin quickly with the wheels, you are putting a LOT of pressure on the sychro grooves to try and spin the engine up to match the trans. This quickly wears down the friction surface of the synchro. When that happens, it will be incapable of synchronizing the engine and trans to the point that the tranny will grind going into first gear even sitting still with the engine it idle, similar to the way reverse does.

Unless you want to rev match everytime you're down shifting, just stop trying to enter 1st gear when you're going any more than ~10mph.