[B I recently had 5th gear go out on my 88 Honda Accord Lxi. I can get the car into 5th but I hear a grinding type noise, all other gears work perfect. I just spent $300 for installation of a new clutch and that did not solve this problem. I was hearing 5th gear whine for about 8 months before it went out. [/B]Can someone please help me on this before i spend more money without knowing the exact cause. Do you think it needs a new trans or just fifth gear which might be done with the trans still installed? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

Has it been leaking? Or low on fluid for a while? 5th gear is the first to go when the fluid level is low on those. But replacing the gears is a fairly easy fix if that is the problem.

 

5th most likely got starved for fluid. These accords had 5th gear outside the main case making them even more susceptible to being starved for fluid than later models.

 

I have seen oil leaking the past 8 months, I thought maybe it was a bad oil pan gasket. Today I hear noise when the car isnt even in gear but gears 1-4 still work excellent. This is a very confusing problem, if the gears can be changed with the tranny still in the car that would make my day. Thanks

 

Normally you have to pull the tranny, in your case though theres a small metal cover over 5th, you'd also normally want to pull the tranny to see just what other damage was done. I'm willing to bet some other stuff got pretty hot and is now pretty soft.