How To: smoother shifting

most of you probably know of this already, but i have found that a lot do not. Let my brother drive my car the other night (first night back from college had to) anyway hes driving the car and didn't even bang a gear. he tells me that "its hard as shit to get into gear" and i replied "eh its just the tranny, your use to your STI." anyway i get out of the car and swap spots and guess what! its hard as shit to get into gear, reverse took me about 5 tries. long story short i came home pissed & shifting notchy as hell!!!! :fm: anyway from reading online i found a simple solution, and it even made the car shift smoother than when i first bought it off the previous owner.

Step 1:
sit in your drivers seat.

Step 2
Bend down and grab around the clutch pedal arm and give it a nice firm pull towards you (not too hard, but give it a nice tug).

Step 3
now release the clutch and sit up straight

Step 4
press down on the clutch and put it to the floor, and hold it there for a second or 2.

Step 5
now release the clutch and it may feel a little wobbly or loose (atleast mine did) now start the car and magic! shift through the gears and notice how much smoother it feels. can move my MGW with 1 finger into every gear :banana:

comments op:

Yeah that works. Just read about that last night and tried it today. A bit better, not night/day though. Worth the 2 seconds of time I say.

yeah in your owner's manual or maintainence booklet(not sure which one) it should have this procedure. I believe its recommended every 5000 miles.

you should also look into swapping the clutch quadrant, the stock plastic ones flex under high load and wont allow moving to the next gear. I love my fiore

Good info, I'll give it a try tonight..Thx

just tried it, I actually felt the difference. going into 1 and from 1 to 2 it's very smooth and not nearly as notchy as before, good find.

That's awesome if it works, but does anybody know exactly what is happening by doing this? I assume some sort of clutch adjustment, but technically what's going on?

I just put my left foot under the clutch pedal and lift up. Same deal with out bending over

and i do it at every stop light.

this only applies to people with the factory clutch quadrant and self-adjuster. if you use a firewall adjuster this no longer applies.

happy motoring!

ShelbyGuy said:

and i do it at every stop light.

this only applies to people with the factory clutch quadrant and self-adjuster. if you use a firewall adjuster this no longer applies.

happy motoring!

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Thanks for clarifying, I was getting ready to go downstairs and try this although mine shifts ok. Fiore does rock...

I need to try this considering the other day I somehow lost half the tension in my clutch???

This procedure helped mine : http://www.corral.net/tech/drivetrain/clutcha.htm

Glfbaluhwakrguy said:

That's awesome if it works, but does anybody know exactly what is happening by doing this? I assume some sort of clutch adjustment, but technically what's going on?

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The clutch cable will stretch over time. If there slack in the cable then as you press the pedal, pull the cable, pull the clutch release fork.... the slack will not allow you to pull to the max and fully disengage the clutch.

If the input shaft to the transmission is spinning then it will be very hard to get the car into gear. If the clutch is not fully disengaged then it will drag a bit and turn the input shaft to the tranny.

This procedure does not have to be done at every stoplight.. thats kind of ridiculous. If you want to be thorough, once a month is fine.

Very nice. I just did this and it did make a difference. Funny how a simple thing like that works. Great post.

crizzut said:

you should also look into swapping the clutch quadrant, the stock plastic ones flex under high load and wont allow moving to the next gear. I love my fiore

Click to expand...

+1

The Fiore unit is nice and it gets rid of the stock plastic pos.

Glfbaluhwakrguy said:

That's awesome if it works, but does anybody know exactly what is happening by doing this? I assume some sort of clutch adjustment, but technically what's going on?

Click to expand...

It is adjusting the stock plastic quadrant. If you are not familiar with it, it is a plastic piece that has teeth on it that makes contact with another piece of plastic. Over time the quadrant moves.....pulling up on the clutch pedal adjusts the quadrant.

Yikes, that was a horrible explanation, but it is hard to explain. I'll get a picture for you, maybe that will help.

Here is the stock quadrant. Those two pieces touch each other as you can see in the second picture. Over time the bigger piece moves along the other piece....does that make any sense? When you pull up on the clucth pedal you are essentially moving the bigger piece back to where it used to be, which is best for the clutch and shifting.





Damn, still a shi*ty explanation, lol. Hopefully you know what I am talking about though.

vipergts281 said:

Here is the stock quadrant. Those two pieces touch each other as you can see in the second picture. Over time the bigger piece moves along the other piece....does that make any sense? When you pull up on the clucth pedal you are essentially moving the bigger piece back to where it used to be, which is best for the clutch and shifting.


Damn, still a shi*ty explanation, lol. Hopefully you know what I am talking about though.

Click to expand...

Dude, an explanation doesn't GET much better than that...HAHA!! :beer:

Thanks. :beer:

Btw, here is the Fiore quadrant.