This is really weird.. The car is a 1995 Impreza L AWD Coupe w/ a 5spd. I drove it last night, and I was on the freeway for about 10 minutes. I went to downshift from 5th to change freeways, and it wouldn't come out of 5th - felt as if I didn't press the clutch. I pressed the clutch again, and the tranny IS disconnecting from the engine, but it till won't come out of gear. So I yank it out, and after that - it was fine for a little while. Went down to 2nd on the onramp, 3rd, 4th, 5th and back to 4th again - just fine. Get off the freeway, and drive around city streets to drop off a friend and it's still fine - I spent more time around between 1st to 3rd than I did on the freeway, and it was fine the whole time. I went back out on the freeway home, and it did the same thing again. It seems like once I reach 60mph or so, the tranny won't come out of gear.

Seems like maybe an AWD diffy issue but then again I have no idea. I was thinking it might be the WRX alloys I put on recently (maybe the air pressure wasn't even) but my G/F said it did this before I put the rims on (it's her car). The only other thing I have done is I changed the trans fluid a while ago (maybe 2500 miles). I used Valvoline 85w-90 gear oil. It was a little over-filled, but I didn't think that would hurt anything (maybe 1/8" over F on the stick).

Anyone have any ideas? I really can't afford a tranny but oh well.. Hopefully it's something simple like the fluid or something. I will check tire pressures tonight, but I am pretty sure that's not it. My first thought was a failed slave cylinder till I realized it's a cable clutch... DOH.

Thanks in advance for anyone with any ideas.

-Jacob

 

Next time it happens, try clutchless shifting- while the car is decelrating slightly from trailing throttle, give it just a touch of throttle back, and gently pull it. If it releases when you've rev-matched, it may be bad synchros or dogs on the gears. If it still sticks, it may be the linkage that's bad. If you put the clutch in while it's stuck in 5th, does the drivetrain disengage, or does it still respond to throttle input?

 

Yeah the clutch works OK - you can press the clutch and the revs drop (just installed the tach woot). Once it comes out of gear it works fine - shifts smoothly between 3-4-5. If you drve again above say 60mph for a few minutes, it won't come out of gear. I need to mess with it more as it's pretty freaky. I have lots of mechanical experience and never seen anything like this before. Again, you can drive it around city streets like 1-2-3 for a long time and it's fine. You can even shift to 4th and 5th (lugging it) and it's smooth - just when you spin up the revs for a while, it doesn't like to shift. This was supposedly a recently installed low-miles used tranny. We have had the car 7 mos, driven 10k miles and this never happened before I changed the tranny oil ~2500 miles ago. I have never heard the trans grind in any gear.

Oddness. I will mess with it more. I need to find the bottle as maybe I grabbed the wrong one and got higher viscosity (I changed oil in 3 trans that day, bought a lot of bottles). Also, it was a little over-full and I spihoned some oil out, but it still read around 1/8" over F on the dipstick. Could this be a problem at all? I think maybe all the oil didn't drain out of the trans, so when I put the recommended amount in - it was really over-full.

-Jacob

 

I found the bottle, it was Shell "SPIRAX HD" 80-90w gear oil. It says meant for trucks and other heavy duty machines but it's still just an API GL-5 gear lube. The shop that did the t-belt said "find the cheapest 80-90 you can and use it." This was it. Gonna swap it out and make sure it's not overfull before condemning the tranny I guess. I have a few other posts here and there where everyone is saying "It's the linkage" or "it's the synchros" or it's just the whole tranny altogether. It never grinds on any gears at all, it's never "notchy" at all, it's not hard to pull out of any other gears other than the gear it was left in while the trans was spinning at higher rpm for a while (once you pull it out of gear and you have had the clutch depressed for a few seconds, you can easily run through the gears again until the trans has been spinning for another few minutes in gear).

We'll see.

-Jacob