My buddy bought a '97 Integra LS a while ago, and we know very little about it still. he's 5th owner, and he's had it for a week. came with a turbo on the exhaust manifold, however no charge pipe and an N/A intake. charge pipe was installed first night of ownership. the car has 269k on the body, and unknown engine/trans miles. 4th owner stated that the third owner rebuilt the motor at some point, so the mileage can vary from about 75k-150k, and it is unknown whether it was rebuilt with OE or upgraded components. as far as we know the transmission is stock and not rebuilt, except for a very strong clutch. first gear started to grind and pop out of place about 4 days ago, and yesterday second has started to go, however the problem seems to be on-and-off. he claims that first will work on rare occasion and second more so, however both are unreliable to use, and has since been starting out in third. he has adjusted the linkage, however has not replaced linkage, bushings, or cables. any ideas as to what could be causing this? (feel free to ask any questions, ill answer when i have a response.) Thank you for your help!

 

Trans is toast!~

 

There are videos on how to open the trans, it's very simple.. a manual tranny is a piece of cake to work on. I would guess the wire ring and sleeve teeth, possibly also the synchro are shot on 1st and 2nd gear. You can definitely fix it. I would suggest buy from synchrotech their complete rebuild kit that has all the bearings, seals, synchros, rings, sleeves and have a like new tranny depending on the dog teeth on each gear and cone condition... if you have wear on the shift forks just get them brazed with bronze. Inspect each hub and sleeves teeth. All you need are some simple sockets and a c-clip expander. I used my impact to get the big nut off the shaft but you can hold it in a vise wrapped in a rag and use a big wrench. Just be careful.
You could probably just get away with replacing the wire rings and sleeves and synchros and be set so you don't have to worry about measuring if your not replacing the bearings.