Hey this is going to be a really unique situation so bear with me.

30 days back I blew my 5 speed and my local AAMCO (Great warrenties and been going there forever w/o any problems) said they could put a 6 speed conversion kit in for 500$ more than a new 5 speed. Finally finished the mechanic was super excited about how it came out and it ran like a champ when we drove it around was getting more speed and it didnt make funny noises. Today I went to the mountains and when I was going to leave the shifter was stiffffff, I got somebody to assist me and we messed with for 5 mins and finally got it to shift into first, any idea what the issue could be? Im due for an oil change in 2k miles, ill provide a list of all the stuff my mechanic replaced when he changed it to a 6 speed for diagnosis help.

He changed:
Transmission to 6 speed
Replaced both axles
The whole clutch including flywheel
New shifting cables
The shifter itself
New transmission fluid


I wanna get some idea of what im dealing with before I contact AAMCO so I dont get shafted by them but luckily its under warrenty just would like some ideas

 

Don't correct me but the throw would be different from a 5 speed? There shouldn't be problems shifting into a gear though? I wouldn't know exactly since I've not driven a brand new manual car.. and I don't think there is a break in period? I do notice sometimes though I live on a mountain and drive into the "valley" which is 1000ft below where my car rest, sometimes it is stiffer than down in the valley(not moving). I cannot tell you why but my guess if I had to say would be temp of the gears and shifter.

 

Thanks yukinoinu, I did a little research and people have noticed when its really cold out the shifting is stiffer, im still gonna give him a call and see what he says but I just tested it at 33F similar temp to the mountain and it just needed a nudge, the flywheel is BRAND and cables are all brand new so a little wear might fix it

 

there has been a few 5 spd to 6 spd swaps. my older tranny fluid would be very stiff in under 15 deg F. I would work it around, but after driving a mile it would be fine. maybe have the check the tranny fluid? or maybe the cables loosened up

 

Check the clutch slave cylinder. What did he put in? I hope it was a 6 spd from an S.

 

I had my neighbor who has a lot of experience drive it around and he felt that the clutch was not really working right but he couldnt put his finger on it, when you drive at low speeds you can hear the shift changes as in you can actually hear the car go into 1st and 2nd. He also felt the gears were really clunky when you shifted into them, said it felt like he had to fight the car to put it into 3rd and 4th. My mechanic test drove it and said there was a lot of air in the clutch and bled it but it went back to clunk city after I drove 5 miles.

Either way its under warranty and if he cant fix it then he will have to fork me the money back and find somebody who will

Also the transmission is from a mini S 05

 

yeah if you cant get into 3rd or 4th, shifter cables or the assembly is binging up a bit and need to be adjusted, unless theres so much air that there isn't any brake fluid to move the clutch

 

Are the cable properly clipped in? They clip into multiple points between the shift box and the relay levers on the transmission.

Are you missing a small plastic bushing on the trans, which can cause clunky shifting?

How does the shift counterweight look? If the bushings in it are worn, or even broken and missing you could encounter the same issue, accompanied with a looseness felt in the shifter.

With the car off, how does it shift? Better/worse?

 

Why worry, sounds like you have a great warranty!

 

Check the master and slave cylinders. I had a leaking slave cylinder which made shifting difficult. It was replaced, but then the master cylinder didn't have enough pressure to drive the slave. If pumping the clutch makes it easier to shift, you might have a problem in one , or both, cylinders.

 

I had a clutch changed a couple of years ago. It ran fine except for noise from the dual mass flywheel. After about 4 months, I noticed it getting more and more difficult to shift into gear, any gear. The shift action became notchy. I just thought it was the cold weather. I brought it back to the dealer, who installed the clutch and he said it was just the dual mass flywheel wearingand that it was normal. Nothing catastrophic ever happened. About a year in, I was pulling out of my office driveway and accelerating uphill when I got a loud bang and no gears. I wasn't even shifting. My car coasted and I was able to coast it to the side of the road.

After taking it all apart, the flywheel surface was still perfectly new. I am a very smooth manual shifter. Given that my original clutch lasted 10 years and over 100K miles, it would be unlikely I had burned out the clutch. What happened was the bearing that the driveshaft goes through had stripped. Likely when the plate was installed it wasn't quite aligned or the bearing was defective. The repair was covered under warranty but I had to replace that dual mass flywheel. I opted to convert to a single mass flywheel system. The price of the entire system was cheaper than the dual mass flywheel by almost $500 and there were fewer things to go wrong.

I would not advise you open up your transmission to check the alignment of your clutch plate as that involves lots of hours of labor. But it might be a good idea to inform your mechanic to be open to the possibility that the clutch plate is misaligned and that should be covered under his warranty.

Hopefully, for you, I'm wrong and that your situation is different than mine was.

 

I called him and told him all the things that could be wrong and he told me he will check all the things you guys recommended except the one where I actually go into the transmission. He said try not to force it into gears but idk what he excepts me to do when im sitting at a stop light and 1st gear has a wall infront of it