car has hard time getting into 1st gear

[winstonsmith]

This may be a dumb question but my 280Z is the first stick I've ever driven so I was wondering if this is normal. When I'm driving and I'm coming to a stop light I push the clutch pedal all the way in and then step on the brake. As I'm slowing down to a stop I try to shift back into 1st gear for when I'm ready to take off again but it won't go back into 1st gear until the car has completely stoppped moving. Is that normal? I can shift into any other gear while the car is rolling just not 1st. Is my clutch going bad maybe? I'm new to manual transmissions so I have no idea. Also today when I went to leave work I tried to shift into reverse to back out of the parking lot and the stick kept vibrating hard and pushing itself back out of reverse before I could even try to take off. I had the clutch pedal all the way in before I tried to shift it. After two tries it stopped doing that and went into reverse fine. Is something wrong here?

[Daniel]

Yeah , I vote clutch, I've been there.

[seerex]

I would first check the clutch to see if its bad , the easy way is to start off like normal and at about say eith 25-35 put the car in its highest gear and floor the pedal<gas> if the engine revs up but doesn't pull or pulls slowly its most likely the clutch starting to slip , from what you say I would next check the shifter bushing if you have alot of play in the shifter , sometimes if they are very worn out it will make it difficult to put in gear , but I would also start looking for another tranny for the possibilty of bad sychros , good luck

[Murph]

I have a pretty worn out clutch in mine and it doesn't seem to cause such problems. Now it's quite normal that you can't get back into first until you're under about 10kmh. Pretty much any manual box will do that. Now, when I first had my car (has a rather tired 5 spd) it was very hard to get into first, like you'd have to sit there pushing the stick for about 3-5sec before it'd go in. The fix? Change the oil! Was like a whole new box. That's what I would recommend before you try anything else.

[280z]

thats completely normal. your really not supposed to shift your car into first while its moving. and the reverse gear is not synchronized so thats also normal for it not to be able to shift while moving more than a few mphs. you can test your clutch by doing what seerex suggested but i doubt its your clutch

[seerex]

I also wonder what exactly sorta speed are you trying to shift into first, I would only do that is you were very close to a complete stop like the speed you could push the car by yourself would be ok but like 4, 5 -10 mph is not gonna work , and 280z is correct as well about reverse , but the the best way is not to downshift to 1st til you are at a complete stop or damn close to it. Great ideal on the oil , i think I might change mine now

[winstonsmith]

Cool. I was wondering what was going on. I am completely new to manual transmissions. I hope it just needs oil then. How do I change the oil in it and what oil do I use?

[Tidoubleger24]

to change the oil, theres two plugs with a half in drive square in them. the bottom one is to drain the oil and the upper one is to fill up to where it starts to flow out of the hole. just use a 1/2 in rachet w/ or w/o extention and it comes right out. let the oil drain for a while, id say for about a half hour and do it after the car is warm because the oil will come off the internal parts easier. id reccommend using a small squeeze pump to put in the oil, because theres not much space. and the oil you use to fill it is gear oil, like 90 wt, the container should specify manual trans fluid, and anyone at pep boys or autozone should be able to point you in the right direction. id also recommend a slight over fill, lets say to the top of the fill plug instead of the bottom but it can be messy, and its alright if you dont. 5 gear usually rides higher than the other gears, and the overfill is help keep it in the oil bath.

[Murph]

One thing to note when you're changing the oil. The filler plug on the side of the transmission has tapered thread, so if someone has over tightened this it'll be a bastard to get out! Remember when you do it up, it does not need to be overly tight (not loose either obviously). I.e. you don't need to swing off it with a breaker bar to do it up.

I'd recommend you make sure you can remove the filler plug BEFORE you drain the box. I could get mine out as the PO's had over tightened it, then totally mutilated the plug to the point it was a round off stump. I had to take it to my mechanic to get the thing out.

On the topic of changing into first gear while moving at speed, it can be done if you double clutch and rev match as you go back to first. While ideally you should double clutch when doing this, you can (with my box anyway) get away with just rev matching it. That'll give you a nice hard kick out of slower corners.