For a long time I drove my RX around with no pitch stopper and very bad tranny mounts. Now, after putting the bigger turbo on, and doing a bunch of stuff to the engine, i finally got off my duff and made some changes.

 

Put in some tranny mounts. Brand new, got them from Bow Wow, not genuine SOA.

 

Had a pitch stopper made. I gave up looking for the right bracket, so I had my buddy make me a pitch stopper after i got the new tranny mounts in.

 

So... why after these changes is it really hard to get it into 1st and 2nd? Before i was having a problem keeping the car in 4th gear, thats gone though. All of the other gears feel perfect.

 

Any ideas? I'm thinking linkage... just hoping its not my tranny borking itself. How do I correct the linkage if that is indeed what is wrong?

what do you mean "hard shift"?

With the clutch in, i have to really force it into gear. There isn't a grinding or anything. Just takes about 10x more force to put it into 1st or 2nd than the other gears. 2nd is actually a touch easier, but still way hard.

If you undid or moved the clutch cable you might have ended up with the clutch not being fully disengaged causing difficulty getting into gears. But it would help if we got some specifics....

sounds like the shift rod to me.

Ok, got it up in the air and looked at it. The linkage seems a bit worn and sloppy. But not too much so. Seems the trouble is happening inside the tranny :-/Need to figure out I guess if the clutch is disengaging all the way... How should I go about that?

one sure way to find out, is to start the car with the front end in the air, put it in gear, but keep the clutch disingaged, and see if the wheels spin a little or not. Just what I do, unless it's all wheel drive.

see if it is still hard with the engine OFF

Its as hard to get it in gear with the car on, car off, clutch in, clutch out.

 

I'm wondering if this yet another thing that is wrong because the car was in an accident (prior to my purchase).

From my exp. with a hard shift, usually the imput shaft bearing gets worn from the ertra pressure and makes it hard .

I'd suspect the aftermarket trans mounts and the pitch stopper. it worked OK before them, so get those up to stock. It sounds like it's flexing the engine and transmission against each other, and I'll bet it's bad for the car to be run that way.