6 Speed sloppy shifter / noises
 

Story: Average Joe knows nothing about cars complains to mom-n-pop wrench his transmission makes noise. They diagnose it as throwout bearing, guy insists its the transmission and buys new replacement from Mazda. Wrench sells transmission for scrap value to this guy, who unfortunately has an "experienced" person dismantle to inspect/repair and allegedly took multiple attempts to reassemble. Before "experienced" person dismantles unit the shifter feels perfect.

Acquired said six-speed and it has aidz. Shifter has excessive movement in neutral, excessive slop in all directions when a gear is engaged, 5th and 6th are very difficult to find sometimes, and reverse is VERY difficult to get engaged. Was told 4th and 5th made some whirring noise by the previous owner but I can't tell what noises are coming from the transmission, crappy tires, or maybe some brakes / wheel bearings going south. When transmission is in 2nd gear and I'm slowing but not engine braking I hear what sounds like a card in bicycle spokes. Shift bushing is a brand new delrin, boot is brand new, and vertical movement of the shifter is very minimal.

While moving at speed in fourth gear if you gently apply forward pressure to the shifter with the gear engaged it makes a loud whirring noise.

Has anyone ever experienced these problems? A good friend of mine is an actual mazda mechanic who's been inside of these before and wants to drive the car before breaking it open, I also wanted to check with MT and see if any of this rings a bell? Fingers crossed that it doesn't need a complete rebuild, have a feeling that would be more than the transmission is actually worth.

Thanks in advance! :makeout:

did you check the shifter bushing? mine cratered and I could barely find gears.

i replaced it with a miataroadster delrin piece and it is all nice and tight again.

Damn. I HATE my 6spd, but it's not this bad... I just can't find reverse 50% of the time.

Yes, the shift bushing is good. I bought a delrin bushing, as indicated in my original post.



Nobody????

How tight are the 4 turret bolts? If they get loose it'll cause a bunch of slop. Probably stating the obvious, but you never know...

Haven't checked those actually, they "appear" tight.

Waiting until next week when my buddy can stop by and drive it. Hopefully he'll be able to repair and replace what's wrong without investing in a new transmission.

my new, used 6 speed is not horrible but not great. I just changed the gear oil from redline to amsoil, hoping that helps. next step is adjusting the clutch pedal because my engagement point is on the floor. I think, hope my trans is fine but it needs some tweaks. at first it was really bad. as silly as it might sound I switched to a heavy shift knob and that actually helped quite a bit but on track I find myself not shifting as much as I might like to. with the stock short r&P its not that big of a deal but still annoying.

I recently did a "Miataroadster.net" short throw shifter upgrade on my 01, and I found that my turret bolts were loose causing the thing to move around a lot.

Combine fixing that slop with the above mentioned short throw shifter, and I believe I have the transmission the way it should have been from the factory.

idk i have the same problem and i cant figure out wtf is wrong with it i thought bushings but no and now im doing a full tranny rebuild

ive got 100k miles on my car as of today. i was going on the freeway and when i was going from 4th to 5th gear... i missed it and it went to 3rd. right away i went back to 4th and tried again. it was a very loose and sloopy feeling and i could not get it to go into 5th gear so slow laned it till i got off and after a few mins on the street shifts fine.

i know i need to replace the oil and the lower and upper shifter boots. im going to look into the bushing... i know i cant do a tranny rebuild right now... hope i dont have to =/