Given everything else that’s going on, I haven’t tried to sort this out with the transmission shop, and I vowed never to deal with them again anyway.
However, depending on the root cause of this, maybe I will. Dunno. We’ll see what happens over the next few weeks/months.
So the context: I just had my transmission rebuilt under warranty because when the shop rebuilt it last May, I immediately had problems with 3rd gear. The shifter would feel as though it was engaged so I’d let off the clutch, but it was just “notchy” enough to fool me. I’d let off the clutch and it would immediately pop out.
When they took it apart last month, they discovered that the synchros were already pretty beaten up; the working theory was that my last clutch wasn’t installed properly, which I’m skeptical about because I trust the mechanic who did that work, but I ended up with a new clutch for free as well as a rebuilt transmission.
(The fact that the synchros were prematurely worn doesn’t explain the 3rd gear problem, since that started immediately.)
So now I have it back, and I’m quite unhappy; I can live with the lack of smooth shifting (it is a Jeep, after all), although I expected better, but the real problem is that 1st gear is now totally hosed.
Most, maybe all, of the time if I crawl in 1st gear long enough (like, more than a few seconds, but not much more) it’ll work its way out of gear. It’s not like my old 3rd gear problem where I would fail to fully engage it because it felt like it was all the way in. 1st gear will simply work its way out of gear.
So my question is this: is that behavior most likely the clutch or the transmission?
And I guess a second question: does anyone have any transmission shops they recommend in the greater Indianapolis area, because I’m sick to death of this bullshit.
Cute not-a-Jeep pic for your time.
