Tweet
Yes I know, everyone is going to say synchromesh and thats all this thing has had thusfar.
My 284 is living a drawn out death. I have a working spare ready to go in when the day comes but I want to ride out the old one as long as possible.
With a little double clutching here and there I can drive it smoothly and a passenger would be none the wiser.
It has sorta poor synchronization downshifting into 2. Upshifts are ok. Absolutely terrible into R. And 1st gear is pretty bad. At a stop light there is I'd guess a 1 in 10 chance that I can't get it into 1st gear at all, in which case I would start in 2nd or put it in 3, let the clutch up just a bit to move things about in the tranny then she'll slide right into 1. The clutch is working 100% and not dragging. Positive.
On top of that I think it has a bent shift fork, in 4th gear the shift lever will move back and forth if you go from accelerating to decelerating or vice versa. This is only in 4th and to a much lesser extent in 3rd. All other gears do not do this at all.
When moving in reverse it shudders if you're not careful on the clutch/gas.
Sounds terrible right? The 1st gear fighting you is very annoying especially in traffic, the rest isn't too bad to deal with. Though the shifter flopping around in 4th gear is a bit embarrassing when a passenger notices.
So, is there anything I can put in this thing that would make it shift better in 1st? If its a little worse for the bearings, well who cares at this point? Not I. If it knocks a few thousand miles off the life but shifts better into 1st in the meantime I'm all for it. That said, I have no doubt that I could drive this tranny across the country and back. I regularly run it hard. It has near 120k miles on it now.
What I'm interested in is a cocktail of fluids. If you have a manual tranny Subaru (like I do) then you know all about fluid cocktails to get your shifting right. Example, my Subaru was grindy into 1st gear at anything more than a stop. After reading about masses of cars with the same problem I threw in a cocktail of redline lightweight shockproof, GM synchromesh and some 80w90. Now I can shift into 1st gear at 20mph no problem. That cocktail had the perfect friction modifier blend for the Subaru. Get the idea?
There is a big difference here, my Subaru had a design flaw but my 284 was/is abused and worn, and no fluid can cure that. But can anything band-aid/improve it at all?
My 284 is living a drawn out death. I have a working spare ready to go in when the day comes but I want to ride out the old one as long as possible.
With a little double clutching here and there I can drive it smoothly and a passenger would be none the wiser.
It has sorta poor synchronization downshifting into 2. Upshifts are ok. Absolutely terrible into R. And 1st gear is pretty bad. At a stop light there is I'd guess a 1 in 10 chance that I can't get it into 1st gear at all, in which case I would start in 2nd or put it in 3, let the clutch up just a bit to move things about in the tranny then she'll slide right into 1. The clutch is working 100% and not dragging. Positive.
On top of that I think it has a bent shift fork, in 4th gear the shift lever will move back and forth if you go from accelerating to decelerating or vice versa. This is only in 4th and to a much lesser extent in 3rd. All other gears do not do this at all.
When moving in reverse it shudders if you're not careful on the clutch/gas.
Sounds terrible right? The 1st gear fighting you is very annoying especially in traffic, the rest isn't too bad to deal with. Though the shifter flopping around in 4th gear is a bit embarrassing when a passenger notices.
So, is there anything I can put in this thing that would make it shift better in 1st? If its a little worse for the bearings, well who cares at this point? Not I. If it knocks a few thousand miles off the life but shifts better into 1st in the meantime I'm all for it. That said, I have no doubt that I could drive this tranny across the country and back. I regularly run it hard. It has near 120k miles on it now.
What I'm interested in is a cocktail of fluids. If you have a manual tranny Subaru (like I do) then you know all about fluid cocktails to get your shifting right. Example, my Subaru was grindy into 1st gear at anything more than a stop. After reading about masses of cars with the same problem I threw in a cocktail of redline lightweight shockproof, GM synchromesh and some 80w90. Now I can shift into 1st gear at 20mph no problem. That cocktail had the perfect friction modifier blend for the Subaru. Get the idea?
There is a big difference here, my Subaru had a design flaw but my 284 was/is abused and worn, and no fluid can cure that. But can anything band-aid/improve it at all?
Comment