Stiff Shifter Side to Side
 

Hey Everybody,

I'm fairly new to cars and I been having an issue with my shifter. The car is still drivable, but the shifter feel is very weird. If I push the shifter to the either side it shifts with ease, except when I try to shift into gears on the opposite side. For example if I start and move through gears 1-4, the shifter gives resistance when going into 5-6. If I am in gears 3-6, and I try to downshift to 1-2, the shifter gives resistance. I know that the shifter and linkage most likely needs to be lubricated, but I'm not sure of how to do that. Does anyone have any thoughts?
Thanks!

The car itself comes with a particularly tight/stiff shifter. Try to compare to anyone’s nearby, yours is more than likely fine.


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Thanks for your response!

I have checked against another 86 and my shifter definitely gives more resistance.

Do you have a brz or frs? My frs compared stock to stock to a brz is way tighter


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I have an FR-S. This may play a role in the tighter shifter, but I don't think that that the difficulty to go into a gear should change as I drive. If I am in 6th gear and come to a stop. It is harder to put into 1st gear. If I am shifting into 5th after going 1-4, it is also harder for some reason.

What climate are you in?


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I'm up in the Midwest, so the car does sit during the winters.

Hmmm I only get that hardness going into 1st and reverse when it’s cold and the trans oil hasn’t warmed up yet


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Yes, I also get that as well. But the stiffness that I'm referring to occurs at all times when I drive the car.

Hmmm sorry can’t help ya. Have you done any work to the transmission?


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Nope. Thanks for your input though. Hopefully someone else can give me some advice on how to lubricate the shifter.

Is your shift linkage sticky moving fore and aft? Not being centered that way in neutral can cause the resistance you feel side to side. If it's not that, then the problem is likely internal to the transmission.

In many of MT twins when gearbox/oil is cold, it's 2nd that is hard to engage until one warms it up in eg. 5min driving. Wouldn't worry on this.
Also, from not to worry things would be when driving at >5kmh, "hard to downshift from 2nd to 1st". IIRC it's by design, to prevent "money shifts". If one needs to downshift to first from second, while still going relatively fast (20-50kmh), better do throttle blip on downshift, for rev-match.

vladniko86: If it's 1st or 2nd, that hard to get in, my bet is that it's not that "common trait", but rather something else, most probably - slight clutch drag.
I'd check, if there isn't done some clutch pedal travel adjustment mod, and maybe revert it a bit, so that there is at least 1-2cm of "dead travel" before bite point.

as for OP, romendiratta: if you have it much harder to engage in compared to other twins, and it still seems too much resistance, i'd first try also if it's not clutch drag at fault, as it's relatively simple to adjust clutch pedal, and if not, maybe oil change. Regarding oil change, shifting feel might be made worse both by overfilling and underfilling, so worth ensuring car is level, when changing gearbox oil, as IIRC level is decided by filling hole (OEM: 2.2lr API GL-3 SAE 75W-90 | Toyota Genuine MG Gear Oil special II. I'm using Redline MTL GL4 70W80). How old is your car? If new enough and there is warranty, i'd also try to take it to dealership. If it's hard to get in gear, usually is because synchros not doing for whatever reason their job well. If it's old car you bought used and clutch drag is not at fault, i wonder if maybe synchros are worn?

Hey guys, thanks for the input.

So there is no resistance when shifting forward or aft. The car is a 2013, but it only has 38k miles on it. I would assume that the synchros are still in good shape. Also I don't ever downshift into 1st. I'm not sure that I described the problem well enough. So I'll link you to this video to hopefully show you in more detail.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oW1...ew?usp=sharing

That looks like a perfectly normal gearshift.


Here's a nice section of the manual; some cool info about the transmission. It's all good but check out the last part.

Oh really, well thanks for the info. I guess I've been wasting my time worrying about something that was never broken in the first place.

I'd say that you're paying attention to your favorite machine and this was a happy learning experience. Hopefully, others stumbling onto this will also be relieved.

Easy to engage gears, is if there is little difference in rotational gears .. or in case if engine is not running, if gears are aligned close to engaging position. AFAIK gears in these trannies are grouped 1-2, 3-4, 5-6. To me it looked, that during first engage 5-6 gears shaft was not exactly aligned for engage with selector gears on clutch side shaft, you forced them in, which may have turned a bit clutch side shaft a bit to align, thus understandably the rest, "easier" shifts afterwards, when also non-aligned 5-6 shaft was in right position (which might be depending on luck, when gear shafts/clutch shaft stops, at which position, sometimes at one where all gears are easy to shift into, sometimes not).

What i'd check for problems, when car is actually driving (with engine obviously running), how gear engages on upshifts/downshifts, for normal shifts, with gear at a time, are easy or not, and obviously to check/compare that against other twin. That is when one needs to evaluate if it does it's job fine, if synchros do their job fine and such.

Thanks for the input!

But you're response was a little bit over my head. Sorry I'm new to the car scene and I have a general understanding of what is happening, but not exactly. But the resistance does occur when the engine is running as well. So what I got from your response is that the shaft was not aligned properly, so it gives resistance when going into a set of grouped gears. Once I go into them though the shaft aligns, which makes it 'easier'. So if this were the problem, how would I resolve something like this?

Latvians - SMH

I can't speak for the earlier models (I have no reason to believe they would be any different) but the shifter in my '17 is spring loaded so that if you move the lever to the neutral position between 1st and 2nd or 5th and 6th and then let go of the lever, it will center itself automatically to the neutral position between 3rd and 4th. This can be handy if you really blow a shift badly and lose track of which position in the gate the lever is in. It gets you back to a known location without having to look at the shift lever or the gear indicator in the multi-function display. You could of course release the clutch and see if the engine over-revs, lugs, or ended up where you intended but why risk the potential embarrassment of not looking cool with a clutch. Anyway, the downside to this is that it does create a little more side to side resistance when leaving the 3rd-4th gear area of the gate. Maybe this is what you're noticing?

You guys, that last part of the page I linked is a force diagram to describe how hard the centering mechanism pulls the gearshift as a function of angle side to side. It starts out hard to move and then gets easier. It's a feature which is why it is detailed in the manual.

Your not playing with enough if it's always stiff.

I just wanted to let you know that the exact same thing happens on my 2017 BRZ

Shifting is fine, it’s moving the shifter to left or right what is considerably harder compared with other 86’s. I have a 2015 FR-S as well and I’ve never felt that it was so hard moving the shifter to the sides.

I’ve also driven about 15-20 other 86’s and never had this hardness on the shifter.

Did you ever figure it out?

One of common mods is replacing to stiffer mtec springs that center more lever in mid against 3-4 gates. But i i don't find moving lever side to side as hard doing/something requiring abnormal force after installing them. Have you bought your FRS used? Maybe previous owner installed some quick shifter but botched something?

Then it's real.

Does it feel wrong moving center-to-left, or center-to-right, or both.

If both, does it do it equally in both directions?

Do you feel interference every time, or does it change up?

Can you change how it interferes by wiggling it fore-aft to center it horizontally?