Ok, so tonight I messed up my car somehow. I never really get on it that much... and with it being Friday night, I felt the need for some needed spirited driving in this new cool weather. It was about 65 outside and felt GREAT and after a stressful day, I just wanted to relief myself with some runs. So this GT35R evo went to race a GTO, so everyone heads to the highway. I JUST adjusted my clutch pedal and everything seemed great so far.. no high rpm lockout like i had been experiencing.

So we get on the hwy and I hit it in 3rd. Go to 4th and im loving this new shifting feel bc I was SO used to high rpm lockout. Go to 5th gear and thought I felt a grind. We all slow down and go again. Going into 5th went in perfectly this time.

Then we go to exit the hwy. I go to pull 5th gear out of gear and all of a sudden, it felt like pulling the gear through mud! After pulling it into neutral, and kinda shaking the shifting around, it felt disengauged finally.

I pull into a gas station and begin testing at a stop and some street testing. 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th shift PERFECT.

Going INTO 5th gear is also perfect. Trying to pull it out of 5th gear into neutral, it feels like shifting through mud. Now if I try to go to reverse, I have to somewhat force it in...not real hard, but enough to know your forcing it in. To pull out of reverse, its a little harder than pulling out of 5th, and then once I go to neutral, I have to kinda shake the shifter back and forth for it to be fully out.

There is NO grinding at all going into 5th, or coming out of 5th while driving, and no grinds going into reverse or out. Even with the car off, the mud feeling is still there which tells me it cant be the synchros.

I tried getting under the hood and looking at the bushing on top without removing the battery & it looked fine IMO... although that is the first time ive ever looked at it.

What is my problem here? I have done my best to describe what is going on. I would love to just take it in to Mitsubishi since I do still have a warranty left, but I have aftermarket clutch, suspension, TBE, intake and flash. Someone even said it could be a bent shift cable... I had my g/f switch gears inside the car as I tried looking at my tranny with the stock battery still in place & im not seeing anything unusual, although im not really sure what I am looking for. I just had brand new OEM fluids put in about a month ago.

 

Ok, I got up this morning to go to work, start up the car & start driving. On my 2 mile drive... 1st gear started acting funny too. It acted like it was having a hard time going into the gear. Pulling out kinda felt like mud, and the same going into 2nd.

The whole shifter kinda feels sloppy. I noticed I now have play between the gears too. Like if I shake the shifter left/right while it is in gear, the shifter will move a little bit on each side, and before last night, it was VERY tight & would never move around in the gear.

Im thinking it HAS to be a bushing, (or so I hope). I am going to take apart the shifter and exam the bushings after work today, as well as the bushings under the hood & post pictures of what I see.

 

Bump. I really need some insight here.

 

Ok, I have took apart everything. I have found that it has to be the shifter cable.

Here are the results:

Here is the tranny and linkage. Nothing looks unusual at all.



Here is a picture of the cables. The one of the left controls the side to side movement, and the one on the right controls which gear you go in, up/down. The left controls which 1/2 - 3/4 - 5/R your in, and the right says whether your in up/down of that gear.

I am having issues with the left cable, which controls side to side movement and selects which gear gate you go into. (1/2 or 3/4 or 5/R)



This shows how this metal piece is correctly seated when completley in center neutral.



This is what happens when you enter 5th gear or reverse. The top lever moves up. If I was to go into 1st/2nd gear, the top level would remain seated, and the bottom lever would move up.

Me in 5th gear.



When I pull out of 5th gear into neutral, the lever does not correctly seat. It kinda stays afloat. I am unable to put the car in ANY gear while it is like this.



After a quick side by side movement or jiggle, it correctly seats itself and your read to move into the next gear.





The cable is obviously not moving back correctly to neutral. Does this mean I need a new cable? Or is it something internal in the tranny preventing me from going back to neutral easy. Maybe everything may need some new grease? LMK what you think.

 

EDIT: Took the whole shifter assembly apart, wiped off all the previous lube and re-lubed everything. No change.

So I squirted WD40 all over the shifter bushings in the engine bay. Got back in the car and honestly it did make a difference. The shifting coming out of 5th was not really muddy any more. It actually makes the spring seat down on the pad, but you kinda have to move the shifter a little down for it to be completley out of the 5th gear mud. Reverse is now easier to come out of. I wonder what is going on here?

ALSO My clutch JUST began slipping today. I did SEVERAL tests... at first it was only slipping 200-300rpm, but now its beginning to get very worse in the lower gears like 3rd. At 3000rpm, ill floor it, full boost at 3500 and instantly it slips to like 4250rpms and falls back down to 4ish then takes off.

So is this 5th/reverse mud issue a cause of the crap clutch now going out? Its wierd bc the previous owners dad told me they just replaced the clutch in April... I dont see why he would have any reason to lie to me considering I bought the car from a dealership, and got ahold of the previous owner through google name search.

Opinions are appreciated. 80+ views and not one response is killing me here.

 

i had the same issues with going to 3rd and 4th , seems like you are having the same problems i had , feels very sluggish , it is not the shifter . its the trans it self , most likely the gear sleeve took a **** , happened with me i drove it for months like that and went to the track 20 plus runs with it , and it finally gave up , the end result i blew the trans 3rd and 4th gear . get your trans checked asap

 

Could be several things honestly, I would highly suggest taking it in to get some answers to be sure. I have a bad feeling you have a serious hang up somewhere but trans issues that aren't normal are very hard to trouble shoot without being in the car and feeling it for yourself.

 

Guess im going to put my car back to stock and take the car in. I hope its not an internal tranny problem bc I do have an aftermarket clutch. Wish me luck.

 

I was having problems shifting into reverse and 4th gear. So I installed BR shifter bushings. To my horror, now the car sometimes doesnt even shift into gears. The lever sometimes just locks out, no movement at all. But the worst thing is reverse, where if it DOES go, it makes a loud khaaarrraaachhh sound...
Should I adjust the clutch pedal, or chng back to OEM shifter bshings??