ant350z

Hey whats up guys? got a little question that i feel i know the answer to but thats why we have a forum to discuss things... Anyway i took the fairlady out drifting last night had some pretty good sessions... open parkin lot sweeping drifts around light posts and then tight street drifts in industrial areas. Anyway I was hitting it pretty hard reving pretty high obviously to keep forward momentum out of the sideways slide... so I turn the car off open the hood to let the motor cool... while my friend rips some sideways action in his FD. Its my turn i'm up again and my clutch just locked me out of gear when the car was on... however when off i could put her in gear... then it just went away. Any ideas?

Losing Grip II

iTrader: (1)

how did you clutch "lock you out of the gear"?

did the clutch depress or compress?

could you push the clutch in or not?

was the clutch all the way to the floor without your foot on the pedal?

this sounds more like a tranny problem. you clutch really doesnt affect whether or not you can actually go into the gear. at certain points in the RPM you can shift without the clutch and without grinding the gears. if you had the clutch depressed (push in) all the way and simply couldnt not put it into gear this might be caused by the design of the tranny. when you are at a high RPM and want to downshift to a lower gear the tranny will make it incredibly hard for you to actually put the stick into gear- push hard enough and it will go into gear. for example- drive you Z to about 15mph and try to put it into first gear from any other gear. its hard to do so and unless you push hard, you wont be able to go into first gear until the car speed reduces to a safe speed. like i said i beleive its your tranny. you could have also experienced clutch slipping which would heat up the clutch and tranny. doing so will result in the lube thinning out and make the synchros (sp?) work harder- thus making it harder to go into a gear.

did this help?

john

ant350z

I was under the impression the clutch is what allows you to engage a gear?

The clutch pressure was fine and normal it didnt do anything out of the ordinary... I could push it in fine...

My assumption was that because I was downshifting at pretty high rpms and was revving pretty hard so the clutch was working hard that the plates heated up and wouldnt allow me to engage gear?!

still a bit confused.

HarvesterUT

iTrader: (10)

so your problem was that after your drifting you could not engage 1st gear? as in you could no move the shifter thru the gate? this is not a clutch problem. if you are doing very hard shifting up or down and are not rev-matching well you can destroy your syncros and possible damage your tranny. not sure why that problem came and went.

JoneZZZ

iTrader: (1)

That happened to me once while doing some runs in deep beach sand in a MT Subbie......I think it had to do with heat......the problem went away after a cool down period(scared the ^#@&^ out of me because the tide was coming in...)

anybody?

JoneZZZ

iTrader: (1)

This is what I suspect ant350z ran in to......fully depressed clutch(clutch al the way to the floor), but unable to move the shifter through the gate.....can anyone explain this?

Losing Grip II

iTrader: (1)

its a tranny problem and/or more than likely its the syncros. the clutch doesn't have an affect on whether or not you can actually go into gear- thats why you can going through the gears with the car off and with or without the clutch depressed.

john

ant350z

got you thanks for the knowledge guys.... now to my next question... why did that happen??!? and is it a serious ?! why did it go away!? Do you think it will happen again.

Losing Grip II

iTrader: (1)

everynow and then i start my car and it will then turn off. freak things happen to cars for the same reason we cough, something just aint right. hopefully thats the case here. if it does it again however, id have it looked at.

john

Losing Grip II

iTrader: (1)

p.s.

try changing the tranny to fluid to a full synthetic. i have royal purple 75w-90 and noticed quite a difference in the smoothness of the tranny. much if the notchiness was resolved by doing this.

john