Please help me diagnose a shifting problem
 

I have 2014 BRZ. There is about 50,000 miles on the transmission. Recently I have been having trouble getting into any gear while stationary. Sometimes it isn't a problem. Other times it is a significant problem, causing me to impede traffic at a stoplight or in rush hour traffic. As long as the car is rolling there is never a problem getting it into gear. The Motul fluid gets changed annually.
Three months ago I had my throwout bearing replaced. While they were in there, I had them replace the clutch and flywheel with an ACT Streetlight setup. Other than some buzzing due to the lightweight flywheel in a certain RPM range, it has worked well. That is the only modification to my powertrain. I don't know if this is related to my shifting issue, but thought it was worth mentioning.
There is no noticeable clutch drag when the pedal is fully depressed, and there is nothing caught under the clutch pedal preventing it from going down all the way. I am sure to press it until it stops. Periodically it is also difficult to get the car from whatever gear it is in back into neutral, although this is less common than going from neutral into any gear.
What could be causing this issue preventing me to get the car into gear?
Thanks in advance for any help.

Sounds like syncro's Mr. @Pat.. how many miles do you have and how many track days?

86,000 miles on the car, and maybe 50,000 on the tranny. I bet there are about 100 track days on the car. I never grind grind gears. I don't think I have done anything that would cause premature syncro failure. Do you?

Nope, just gathering info at this point.. gears being "sticky" and difficult to get into gear from a stand still is usually indicative of syncro failure though.

Did you have a tranny replacement at some point? Why are the miles different? Was it rebuilt?

Original tranny was replaced under warranty.

Had the same problem on my ACT kit. Sound like clutch drag. It's not enough to pull the car, but it's enough to keep you from gating the gear.

You could try replacing the clutch fluid and adjusting the clutch pedal throw depth. Those are about the only things you can really do besides ripping the clutch out.

As a stop-gap, I noticed revving the car a bit helped unstick the clutch disk and allow you to gate. It's annoying/obnoxious, but it can help you in a pinch. When I was going through that, I would just always gate into 1st before I came to a full stop and just hold the clutch pedal the entire time.

In the end, I never resolved the issue. Pulled the ACT kit and put my OE one back on. You can read more here: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128871

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Interesting thing was I sold the same kit I pulled off the car to my friend. I warned him about the issue, but he hasn't had any problems since he's had it on his car :iono:

Had the same with my Talon when I put the light flywheel in. A slight rev would get it spinning enough to break the clutch free and the syncros to work properly. The only solution I had for that was also to go back to stock.

So it's not syncro's! But if the problem persists, then it soon will be!

Wow, EndlessAzure, that was a fantastic post. +10 points for you. Thanks again.
After reading his post, does anyone else have other ideas? I'd rather not pay for another clutch job again. But the problem only seems to be getting worse and something needs to be done.

Get to adjusting and hope that it resolves the issue!
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8040

You mentioned a part about grease on the input shaft. I think this is really interesting and I didn't follow what the manual says.. I definitely put a little bit of Moly Paste (https://www.hondapartsdirect.com/oem...%3D&origin=pla) on the shaft.. I'm still running stock clutch, but do have a lightweight flywheel.

According to the manual, there shouldn't be any grease applied where the TOB travels.. Do you think it's to keep the shaft from getting gunked up in that location?
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/as...a=w776-h391-no

I greased the quill on mine and no issues. Excedy OEM kit was used with new 2018 TOB from the dealer.

From the description I’d also suspect drag, in my experience worn synchros allow gear engagement too quickly and result in the tell-tale grinding. It sounds like the synchros are actually doing their job and preventing gear engagement because the component speeds can’t be equalized.

I clearly need to work on my diagnosing foo!

What are the chances bleeding and/or replacing the clutch slave would fix it?

Not likely to help but easy enough to try. You may be able to adjust it out as was mentioned.

https://demos.starbase7.net/t3Portal...36214698620217

I have an ACT as well Pat, same exact problem. I just leave it on because it is not a street car anymore, and it does not bother me while on track, but it does feel like clutch drag to me. I also had it with another clutch, but with OEM flywheel, so it is not related to the flywheel only, but probably a combination of clutch and flywheel depth and the adjustment on the pedal travel. I saw a post somewhere to fix it but I never got around to it.

Edit: also, for what its worth. I did bled the clutch MC completely and it did not help.

Well I can't say for sure it was because of the grease (whether there was too much or too little).

The OE TOB actually comes pre-greased on the inner race surface, where it sits on the input shaft cover.

When I installed the ACT kit, I put a very light coat of the hi temp grease (that came with the ACT clutch kit) on the splines, TOB inner race, on the input shaft cover where the TOB sits. All of this is per recommendation/common practice. If the clutch disk had problems coming away from the pressure plate, may be due to lubrication issues. Might not be the root cause, but is worth a consideration.

Do you know if the guy you sold the clutch to used grease or not?

Knowing the guy I sold it to, he probably did the bare minimum and didn't take much care in the process.

Nothing like OEM lol

I bled the clutch with fika84's help and it did not make a difference. I have an appointment with the shop that installed the clutch to see what they think.

The shop that installed the ACT kit removed it and installed an OEM kit and yet ANOTHER redesigned OEM TOB. They said the most recent update to the TOB is very different than every other one. While I'm bummed to lose the benefits of the LWFW, it's nice to be able to drive my car on the street without issues. They said the ACT clutch, flywheel, and pressure plate are fine and were not the issue.
So yeah....who wants to buy an ACT kit with just a few thousand miles on it? The shop said it is in nearly new condition as expected given the mileage.