Well the time has come for me to fix the trans and/or clutch on the Z. The car and been grindin in 2nd 3rd and sometimes 4th. I dunno if its the clutch or the trans. I thought someone might be able to give me more info on if its the trans or clutch. For some reason I just dont think its the trans. Today I was driving through a parking lot in first and it started grinding with no shifting! Just started grinding! I took it out of gear and put it back in gear and everything was fine. It also seems like when I double clutch the car I get no grind. WTF! Any ideas?

 

do you grind both ways? 2->3 and 3->2? thats usually clutch if it grinds both ways

 

How does the cluth pedal feel? Can you feel it engage in the middle or towards the end. If towards the end then I would think clutch. If you haven't been having any symtoms before now then maybe your gear box was always okay. I had to have my my gear box replaced and it is just fine now. Did it at Falore Nissan in the Bay Area. But being that your APS'd you probably have performance clutch? And maybe all that power stressed your tranny more, who knows?

 

1. If Clutch is worn it generally slips under load. Most noticeable 5th-6th gears revs will blip 500 rpm or so before the clutch grabs fully under hard accelleration. Slow gets worse and if let go too far in addition to clutch replacement increases cost to deal with flywheel (resurface or replace).

2. If will not stay in gear (pops out on its own usually 1st/3rd/5th) may be wear inside transmission. A clutch that does not fully disengage can contribute to grinding while shifting. With the engagement so high in the pedal travel not disengaging the clutch fully is hard to do with this car.

Need someone to drive it who can make the call which way things are heading.

HTH

 

the grinding is due to 2 things only - improper adjustment of the clutch pedal (free play, which determines the engagement and release points), or worn synchros. A bad clutch, no matter how shot it might be, will not cause a grind into any gear or from any gear

The fact that when you double cluch, there is no grind leans 95% to it being bad synchros in that gear or those gears (each gear has their own)

 

When my Z started having less than smooth shifts and very slight grinding noises I paid a lot of attention to what was happening with others in 2003 with 02/03 model year cars. A significant amount had bad or prematurely worn synchros. The first one I saw was on a guy's car who definitely knew how to shift and shift well (but was also running a decent shot of nitrous at the time!). He lost third on the way out the Lime Rock in CT on a Z-corral day at the track during ALMS race weekend, back in Spring of 2003.

In each of the cases I mentioned the cause was bad synchros with one exception where a gear was actually broken (teeth missing). I personally have seen 2 people's Z's just stop working in 3rd - won't go in, started by grinding noise and would not stay engaged, while other gears were relatively fine. That seems to point as you mention not to clutch but synchros...which should be covered clean under warranty IMHO.

Good luck!