My friend's car has this problem with his tranny having a hard time going into first gear and reverse; he have to pump the clutch pedal couple of times to get it in while other times he just have to jam it in there hard to get it in. No grinds or anything; matter of fact I checked out all the gears, synchros, fork, etc. before we installed the tranny and they were like brand new. Someone suggest that it could be a throwout bearing but I totally doubt it because the T.O. bearing had less than 500 miles on it. Everything was torqued to specs and the fluid is Honda MTF btw.
Any suggestions will be greatful.

 

rebleed the clutch master cylinder. It is not as tedious as doing brakes like people tell you or think.

All you have to do is crack the bleeder at the tranny then pump the clutch pedal with your hands and make sure the resivoir doesnt go empty while you are doing it. Just keep pumping till all the bubbles come out then close the bleeder.

You do not have to do the pump, crack, close, pump, crack close method like brakes.

Also, is this a know good clutch, namely the pressure plate? The TO bearing should not make a difference. If the gears are hard to go in, it means that the pressure plate is not releasing fully. Which points to the bleed, the pressure plate, and sometimes a defective master or slave cylnider

 

mite also be the clutch slave cylinder going out as well. as with the suggestion above, bleed the system first to make sure its not just cuz u have too much air in there. if it is ur slave cylinder dying, eventually your clutch pedal will have less and less pressure until it just dies and lays on the floor. when my slave cylinder died, i checked the master and slave many times, and didn't find any leaks either. good luck with your car.

 

You can keep pumping while the bleeder is open? won't it suck air back in when you release the pedal? I'll give it a try....also the pedal is pretty stiff so I think the slave/master cylinders are cool. The whole clutch kit is new (about 300 miles) btw.

 

Yes because there isn't any return springs on the slave cylinder so when you pull the pedal back up it draws fluid from the resovior.

This is the way outlined in the Helms and I did this with a ACT pressure plate/clutch and I have zero clutch problems so I know it works.

 

Hey Tony, I tried it your way but the fluid keeps going fast and the pedal became softer than before--I refilled the container 3-4 times and it wouldn't get any stiffer until I did the pump, open, close way like on brakes. Now the clutch pedal is stiffer and the first gear and reverse goes in more often than before (a little easier now), but just not every single time yet. I might be wrong about the master/slave cylinder then.....How would I go about distinguishing between the two and see if one is faulty?

 

the pedal isnt going to get stiffer until you close the bleed screw

When the bleed screw it open it is extemely easy to push fluid through. Just make sure the resivoir doesn't go below the min line or you can introduce more air into the sytsem.

Pump about half a liter through the system and close the valve.

I did my car this way, just like the helms says, and my clutch works perfect.

if that still doesnt work for you, something might be faulty elsewhere.

 

Well the pedal feels pretty good right now, but still slightly hard to go in sometimes. I notice the 1st and reverse really don't wanna go in when the car rolls slightly--weird

 

update...I noticed that the times it won't go in first or reverse, it won't slide into any other gear either. I have to sit there and pump the clutch til it lets me in on one of the tries; sometimes I just push really hard and force it in.

 

ok... stop forcing it in..

Was the clutch replaced?

The pedal should feel nice and stiff requiring a good amount of pressure depressing and releasing...

A tip for bleeding the clutch system is to pull up on the clutch pedal very slowly after the pump, open, close thingy...

 

Yeah the clutch only have less than 500 miles. I don't think this is the problem but he's using an ls slave cylinder with this b16 tranny--could the ls slave not push the clutch fork out far enough for it to engage?

 

 

Well I changed out the ls slave for the b16a slave cyl. for him and bled some more, but still playing russian roulette thing with the first gear.