So I was driving to the store and the prelude was driving normally. When all of a sudden I shift from 2nd to 3rd at around 25mph or so but it doesn't go into the 3rd gate and gets stuck in neutral. I pump the clutch a few times and still nothing. So i turn my emergency lights on and pull over. I turn the car off and can move the shifter into 1st-3rd gates except for reverse 4th and 5th. The brake fluid in the clutch m/c is fine and also checked behind the firewall to see if any fluid was leaking none. Slave cylinder doesn't look like it's leaking. Just curious if the clutch is dead or what? My instinct tells me even if the clutch is dead it'd still be able to get into the gears. Could it be a throw out bearing? Or is the transmission dead? BTW I had the car towed home and tried to shift it into different gears and it'd go in but i don't want to force them into the gears.

 

I had the same problem with mine. It was the clutch. My clutch would not slip either.

I have a STRONG suspicion that one of the springs in your clutch disk feel out too. Let me know if I am correct.

 

could be something simple like a shifter cable, it could have broke or just come loose some where.. try shifting the trany inside the engine bay

 

How do i shift the the tranny from the engine bay? If it's a spring out of my clutch I think I may go ahead and put a stock clutch back in there

 

if it were a shift cable then you would be able to move the shifter around like nothing. you wouldnt feel the gates at all. i just replaced mine, it broke going down the road and left me with nothing but third gear. not a fun experiance.

 

That's quite funny because i just checked this morning and now it won't go into any gears

 

is it really sloppy?

i.e. if you put it where 5th should be,push up, can you run it all the way left to where 1st should be without hesitation? etc etc.

basically is the shifter can move anywhere if the shift box, just like its attached to nothing then yes, a cable has broken.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Shakes &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">is it really sloppy?

i.e. if you put it where 5th should be,push up, can you run it all the way left to where 1st should be without hesitation? etc etc.

basically is the shifter can move anywhere if the shift box, just like its attached to nothing then yes, a cable has broken. </TD></TR></TABLE>It's not sloppy at all. It's just really stiff and won't go into anything, and I don't want to force it in the gates

 

Can you put it into all the gears when the car is off??

 

hhmmm...

one of the shifter cables moves you from gear to gear and the other one i have no clue what its for.

when mine broke it was the one that would put it into gear, so it moved all over the place because it wasnt attached to the tranny anymore.

i wish i knew what would happen if the other one went out. sorry man, good luck though

 

I had this same problem, my clutch was perfectly fine, its still running the same clutch as when it happened but i had to buy another tranny, the garage i installed the lsd tranny in was telling me it was the shift-fork and when that went it pretty much wouldnt let it go in the gears. So thats one option.

What we found out though when we put the new one in was that i had twisted my passenger axle(hasport) and that is what caused everything to go to **** inside.

if i ever wanted to use the tranny again i would have to get it rebuilt.....so looking at $1200-2500 depending on options

I was having the same symptoms though, couldnt go into gear after you tried reverse or fifth but if you just went through 1 through 4 a few times with a decent ammount of force it would loosen up and you could drive. Hope this helps maybe a little bit

 

It goes fine into gears when the car is off, the shift fork might be something to look at also. I need to take the time tommorow to look at the Helms book. I'll be buying a WRX tommorow so not even sure if ill fix the prelude or just sell as is

 

I am willing to bet some money that it is the clutch. I had the SAME PROBLEM. It turned out to be the clutch. People always seem to think that a clutch is bad when it slips. NOT TRUE at all!!

Do you drive your car hard or does it have a lot of miles on it??

Place your bet people!!

 

I drive the car pretty hard and there is a lot of miles on it