Shifts harder with hot tranny - grinding
 

Hey guys.

So my 8 is exhibiting some odd behavior. It's an 04 with 102k miles.

Starting up in the cold, the shifter is extremely floppy and loose feeling for the first mile or so of driving. So floppy that the 1-2 shift sometimes crunches a tiny bit (no grind, just a dogbox-like clack or crunch). Double clutching fixes it. All other gears are fine.

As the car goes through a medium heat stage (coolant up to temp, but exhaust temps not permeating yet) the shifts start to stiffen up a bit and actually feel quite good. Shifts are fast with the right amount of resistance and no strange noises or behavior is exhibited.

After about 30 mins of street/highway driving (10 mins of track/backroad driving), the tranny seems to get quite warm (inner shifter boot slightly warm, cup holder area warm with cover on) and shifts get stiff and slow. It's as if the synchros get very stiff and shifting through them feels like pushing on a wall. Shifts will complete, it just takes effort. The higher the RPM, the harder it gets. 1-2 is the worst, 2-3 isn't too bad, 3-4 will grind at anything past 7500 RPM.

Double clutching helps.

I have changed the gear oil 2 times. Once from whatever was in the car when I bought it 10k miles ago to Redline, the second just yesterday when I decided to try Amsoil. No change.

The car did not do this when I got it, and only started doing this about 5k miles ago. First track day went fine, but the second track day showed this problem.

Any ideas?

The situation where you say shifting through the gears feels like pushing on a wall, sounds like a typical clutch problem to me because I had the same problem last spring and it was totally the clutch not disengaging. I had the clutch pedal and master cylinder serviced and it started to shift smoothly.

^^ what he said.

Look at bleeding the clutch. It feeds off the same reservoir, but does not circulate at all. You could have 10 year old fluid down in the cylinder. I had some incredibly nasty crap in my rear wheel pistons when I tore them down, the clean fluid just went right past it.

I think I have first hand experience on heat jamming things up.

Clutch might need an adjustment as well. There is a procedure out there someplace. I seem to recall that it should be released an inch off the floor, but am not sure.

That help?

Thanks guys, those are good leads. I have also heard that bad motor mounts can cause a similar issue. I think between those ideas I have plenty to work with.