So, everyone that has driven my mini says that it's difficult to find gears at times. Third especially has the tendency to go in somewhat and just grind.

I was suspicious that the shift cables were stretching and just not moving the gears enough. Searching around on the internet, I found that the general issue is that the cable just breaks off.

 

I hate it when my ***** are difficult.

 

Fixed the missing character...

 

clutch might be on its way out OR clutch line needs to be bled OR tranny is low on fluid

 

You don't really seem to be asking any questions here in this thread. What is it exactly you're looking for?

I've not driven a mini with difficulty shifting but it's certainly possible. Parts do wear out. If it's only third then it seems like it should be 1 and 5 as well. If it's really just only third then your 3rd gear syncros might be wearing out. A trans fluid change might help.

 

On mine, the 2nd gear will refuse to go in if I floor it from a stop and shift to 2nd before the redline. Otherwise it works properly, most likely a synchro. Do you know if your friends experienced this in a higher rev shifts?

 

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions. After a bit of thought here is my suspect list. It consists of just about everything outside the transmission:

Stretched shift cable
warn lower motor mount
warn trans mount
Slave cylinder
Master cylinder
contaminated clutch fluid

The reason for this is we put in a new-to-me transmission, fresh transmission oil and a brand new clutch and the shift didn't change at all. Original clutch was a Valeo and new one is Duralast.

After the trans swap, I was chasing down oil leaks and didn't notice anything leaking from the trans. Couldn't hurt to check the trans oil level next time I have it up in the air of course.

I tend to avoid direct questions as they can lead to bias of my own suspicions (Of which are now blatantly listed above). The hope is that someone with a similar experience has solved the problem and can chime in, but you're right there is no question mark anywhere in the original post. The implied question is, "What's wrong?"

As mentioned above, unless it's leaking out and I missed it the fluid only has about 2k miles on it. Given that it's a completely different transmission, my thought was that the odds of both having the same problem was fairly low. Especially without finding any other posts with similar symptoms.

We all seem to be in the habit of shifting really low actually. Friend made note of that when we made our initial test drive. I would normally shift my old Jeep just over the 1k rpm mark which is where I get the habit from. So, the car idles cold where I use to shift the jeep

 

I've been slowly but surely fixing this.
First, replacing the lower motor mount bolt really helped with getting it into gear.

Next, flushed the clutch fluid and has made the clutch pedal a lot easier to press!

This little plastic thing in the shifter is next on my hit list:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ifter-now.html