ok, so starting yesterday and preceeding today, my car is now making it extremely difficult to engage a lower gear. particularly from a complete stop, and particularly in gears 1 & 2.

i'm using the stock transmission with a, here is comes, SPEC stage 4. now, unless they sent me a Stage 3 by mistake, then i think i am now having the same problem that apparently has plagued these clutches for some time.

i looked at the following posts:
http://forums.2gnt.com/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=34&topic_id=4385&mesg_id=4385&page=2
http://forums.2gnt.com/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=34&topic_id=5331&mesg_id=5331&page=2

as well as several others, and noticed that my transmission/clutch problems are very similar to the ones in the first post linked above. i can engage lower gears if i rev-match, or if i clutch in and out a few times and then try grabbing the gear. but if i am simply downshifting, or just starting the car up, it takes quite a bit of coaxing to get it into reverse or 1st.

is there anything i need to check besides transmission fluid and clutch fluid, that can be checked without any disassembly of parts? my new home does not permit easy installation or removal of parts as i am now forced to park in the yard, rather than on a solid surface like a carport or driveway. i don't think dropping the transmission is something i could do in a timely manner, so i'd like to be able to semi-diagnose this before taking it to a shop. i installed my turbo kit, but this seems alot more intimidating, coupled with the fact that i know absolutely nothing about the drivetrain of our cars, despite being pretty knowledgable about the rest of it.

as for the spec clutches, was that problem ever resolved? are they offering replacements? the problem is, i bought the clutch over 2 years ago, has it installed in january of 2005, but didn't drive the car until december of that same year, and have put less than 5k on the spec clutch. does anyone know the warrantly details, if any? i dont want to pay a shop to fix this problem thinking its tranny-realated, only to have the put it all back together and find out it is the clutch that is at fault. i can't afford that much labor.

EDIT:

meant to put this in the MT forum, so please move it if necessary. but i wanted to add:

is it at all possible that low fluid levels in either the tranny or the clutch could be causing such a sudden and semi-serious problem? wanted to know if i should get my hopes up for this being an easy fix...

UPDATE:

today i bled the clutch, and refilled the reservoir. wasnt able to shift into ANY gear with the car running. so i had to shut the car off, shift to reverse, crank it up and then back out into the street. got into the street and couldn't engage any gears, and had a little trouble getting it back into neutral with the car running. so i let it roll back into the yard and turn it off.

get under the hood again and check the fluid...empty. so apparently something leaked, or else everything in the reservoir was emptied into the clutch?

so i refilled it again and repeated the above process, backed out, rolled back in, checked the level again and it was still competely full. so apparently i DONT have a leak. the second time i tried running it, it was full of fluid the entire time, and i still couldn't get any of the gears engaged.

so what does this mean? what exactly is wrong? this is made even more confusing because i was able to drive all the way home last night with minimal trouble, yet today i can't even get into a single gear, much less drive anywhere.

can anyone provide some insight into what is wrong?

EDIT: and oh yes, i should probably mention that my spec clutch still chatters/rattles even after a proper break-in and 5 thousand miles of use...is this normal? do spec clutches chatter for the entire time they are installed?

Could be a failing master / slave cylinder. Pull the boot back on both of them and see if its wet. If there's fluid collecting under the boots, they're leaking and should be replaced.

that's what I was hoping to hear. so a completely failed cylinder could cause complete lack of shiftability? with a vacation to, of all places, tampa, next week, I'd like to not have to pay to replace the clutch. but if the spec is broken, I'm gonna switch to either a clutchmasters 4 or southbend.

should I bother checking the tranny fluid as well? or would a lack of it not cause the above problem? if I can save myself a tow to the shop, ill find a way to jack it up and check that fluid as well.

Lack of trans fluid wouldn't cause what you're seeing. it would be a much slower degredation of drivability.

must be the clutch then...it's going into the shop tomorrow anyway.