Scenario:
I ran the car at the 1/4 mile and at the end of the run I stopped to add air to the tires. When I went to moved the car I had no gears at all. I let the car sit for about 10 mins and then I could shift and drove home fine. The next time I got in the car I noticed reverse was impossible to get into. I took it out Saturday and the reverse problem did not go away (not that I thought it would, but I was hoping).

History
First the clutch starting having that soft pedal feel so I replaced that a few months back with teh RPS clutch.

The car ran great for a bit, but at the track I started to experience problems with shifting from 1st to 2nd after about the 3rd trip down the quarter mile. I thought it was me so I continued to drive it.

There were no problems with shifting at all during normal driving, but about 2 weeks ago having fun on a highway doing some rolling starts I noticed I had problems shifting 3rd to 4th under high rpms. I missed 4th a few times or it was hard to get into gear again this was only during high rpms.

I thought it may be the C6 shifter so I swapped that out for the Hurst. Yeah the problem from 1st - 2nd and 3rd - 4th seemed to be better. I went to the 1/4 track 2 times and could shift without missing a gear (the 2nd time is the time I got the real problem mentioned above and it was the last run of the night).

As mentioned above it is now almost impossible to get the car into reverse and 1st gear is not that easy either. When the car is moving all the gears seem to be ok, but stopped I need to force somewhat push it into gear and reverse takes a ton of work (basically reverse is locked out and then after a few tries and some convincing it will go in).

anything I should check to maybe confirm what it maybe. Right now I am leaning towards the tranny as the issue. I know the 01s (C5) had aluminum shift forks so maybe one is bent or the syncros maybe shot.

thanks

 

If you can shift into 1st and reverse with the engine off, I would think it has to be clutch related.

 

Yes, kinda sounds like the clutch is dragging (not releasing completely when you push the clutch pedal).

 

If I remember right I had a problem getting in reverse even with the car off, but I will check again tonight. Thanks

It really is just reverse that is really bad. First I can get into, but it just doesn't feel right - it kinda snaps in not slide in. Reverse I can't get the car into without forcing it and even that takes some luck.

 

Clutch is my best guess. You can maybe get away with putting it into a different gear and quick back into reverse. My friend does this without any problems. Not a fix, but a way of driving it for a little bit.

Good luck
Randy

 

thanks guys. Clutch could make sense, but thinking it was pretty new I thought I could elimanate that.

 

I think it is the trans. If it was a clutch problem you would have trouble in all gears.

 

If it goes into reverse and first easily when the engine is off, it's probably your clutch dragging. If the input shaft does not completely stop, it's tough to get it into reverse and first.

 

I came home and checked the car with it off. It went into all gears with no problem. I then started the car and it then took effort to get into first and reverse.

Thanks

guys