2002 2.2 5 speed
 

I have a 2002 alero 5 speed and the car grinds going into fifh gear. Also sometimes it's tough getting it into reverse. Have any of you had this problem and what could it be? I was thinking the synchros.

synchros was my first thought too.

Any manual tranny guys want to chime in?

i wish i could help... but mines doing that in every gear lol.

Im in the same positon... 5th started grinding after I let a bitch drive my car and went to down shift from 5th to 4th but went to Reverse lol... Could be the synchros, but most likely the forks, the nylon tend to wear down on them. Try double clutching and see what it does. Lots of people say its cheaper just to find a used tranny with good mileage. You guys lucky cause I would think theres more in Canada than here.

As for you Colonel I think either I would try bleeding that clutch and see what it does, you might already tried that. Every gear that seems excessive lol

maybe the syncros... but you have more chance to have a used/bent shift fork....

lol, i'm working on bleeding the clutch, but my tranny has seen about 1000 miles with no oil in the tranny... my fault lol

nooo it'd might be the synchros for going into 5th cause it's trying to catch at the engines right rpm's again. but for reverse it'd be a fork because it's not trying to get the gearing right for catching the rpms'
synchros are basically like doing a double clutch, trying to get your rpm's up where they were when you were going up to switch gears.
be sure you have good and the right level of tranny fluid before you spend money though lol

do you know that it's the same fork that does the reverse and the 5th gear... and that's not the first time that I heard/see that they fail, I can't say that it's common, but it's one weakness of those tranny......

That's pretty bad man... 1000 miles, I'd def worry about running synchros dry, the fluid's there for very important reasons.

Guil sounds like he's on the right track... if that fork controls only those 2 things and it only happens with those two, I'd try that. Perhaps is slightly less major surgery than pulling out the internals for new synchros.

Also, 5th gear doesn't hardly ever see especially rough usage, so burning up a synchro to the point it doesn't do it's job properly is unlikely.

yaaaa clutch one is right
5th gear wouldn't take much abuse at all.
unless you accidentally hit reverse a couple times while shifting gears and grinded a little bit since it runs off the same fork. i'd say fluid for the synchros if it;s those other wise you probably have a bent fork

how can you hit the reverse while driving do you have parkinson ?

when you dont know how to drive... and also when they think they driving a VW with Reverse under first gear.

I do have the Parkinson. I have only had the car for a month and a half now so I don't know how the car was driven before that. Also I just noticed unless your stopped first and second are a little stiff getting into gear. So what am I looking at for cost of a tranny. Is it difficult to replace. I will check the fluids once I get a chance to do so. How difficult is it to replace the forks or get them fixed. I'm new to this car and haven't done any work to it yet.

The first gear stiff its normal...getrag.

68 GTO 400 turbo tranny
going back into first gear from say 3rd or any above that when you go to far left and go up like you were going back into first you will hit reverse
well i did when i first started driving stick cause that's my first stick car
haha 455 bored out 30 over forged pistons polished rods headers bigger oil pan and pickup etc ahahah when i was in california i ran in a 10.98 with a hit of nos

Skipping gears is a bad idea. You should also consider the use of punctuation so people can understand what you're saying.

so when your slowing down from 3rd gear to first to turn or stop or something that's bad?? i don't think so. clutch pedal disengages everything it's not bad for it. << do you know the sentence is over now cause the period?

That's why I kept the reverse lockout when I put in my B&M shifter... some people don't know any better.

tunerkid: The proper way to do that is to go from third to second, slow down then second to third. The only logical reason to do otherwise is if you do an emergency stop and are going too slow afterward for second gear, and by that point you're just about stopped anyway.


I like the old cars where you have to push the shifter down towards the floor before it'll go into reverse

if you drove this GTO it's not a nice smooth ride and then idles down nice and easy to. you let off the throttle it slows down fast(with aftermarket flywheel, stock ones are heavier and give a little more momentum.) but anyways i havn't got the gearing right for regular driving.

If it's not smooth skipping a gear would be even rougher, may even cause a tire skid. Plus those old engines won't take high RPMs like some of the newer ones will, so why push it?

tires almost always skid in downshift on that car.
yaa they don't but the 455 def takes more rpms's than the 400 but i don't even dare take it over 4,000 rpms

You do have it ?? If so I'm sorry I said that joking...
Replace the fork is a pretty complex process it invloves drain the oil, removing the tranny, disassenbling it, check all the clearances and specs with appropriate tools and then find the parts and replace them, reassemble the tranny and cross your finger so that the rest will hold.... Your best bet is to get a good used tranny from a salvage yard.. Like tha tyou do not need to dissasemble it or nothing.
But while doing this you should be better check the condition of your clutch and replace it if needed, at the same time you'll have to put new tranny fluid in, I strongly suggest to use Gm synchromesh fluid.

i thought you meant the reverse thing just how you put it. i dont have parkinsons disease. sorry long days at work really mess me up :lol:

lmfao, that was pretty epic.

I've never dropped the trans on an Alero before, I assume the subframe's gotta drop, then mounts/bellhousing bolts and it'll drop out?

if i remember correctly, when i had my trans rebuilt (2.4) the tech took the left side cradle bolts completely out, then dropped the right side cradle bolts as far as they would drop without completely coming out, then unbolted the motor mounts, suspended the motor from up top and somehow finagled the trans out

that probably works, i also have good luck with mobil1 full synthetic tranny oil