M56 manual 3rd gear grinding
 

Hi,
I am new to the forum and I signed up because I just bought a relatively good condition, 200,000 mile 1995 850 Wagon GLT for $250. Runs great and drove great for the first week since I bought it until last night. I was leaving my friend's house and ever since then, when I try to put it into third gear, upshifting or downshifting, the transmission will grind on the way into third. It grinds at about halfway between neutral and third, but really resists going in. If I can manage to get it into third, it drives fine in third and comes out of third smoothly. I have tried double-clutching and rev matching, but this has not made a difference. Sometimes, if I push the clutch in all the way and let the rpm's come down to idle, and then shift into third, it will not grind, but that is only sometimes. So for now I am shifting from second to fourth to avoid any further damage. Any help would be much appreciated, thank you!!

sounds like you have a broken synchro ring on 3rd gear. Since you didn't mention any other gears having issues, I would not think you have a clutch issue

I just abandoned a 95 5-speed, so I may be able to help you with some internal transmission parts. I did not break the transmission up, but I kept it on a shelf here out of curiosity. Mine unfortunately has over 300,000 miles on it and what's in there might not be any good. Like you, I had problems with a synchro, 4th gear in my case, and I didn't have much luck rev matching either, despite having grown up on a farm and doing a lot of double clutching on quite a variety of crashbox transmissions. I skipped 4th gear for about 40,000 miles.

Okay thank you for the idea. I agree, I think it is a synchro issue too. Thanks!

Oh awesome, that would be great! What do you want to do? Thanks!