Bad 1st gear syncro. Looking for opinions.

[gadams]

I'm building a 99 eclipse with a 97 4g63 drivetrain (FWD) I am pretty much done with everything and its good to be driven on the road once I get this one issues settled. When in 1st gear if you start to let the clutch out the transmission will pop out of gear and sometimes grind. It used to be that if I held the shifter up it would not do that but it appears to be getting worse. At this point I'm only confident in moving it forward in 2nd gear. Before I go ahead and buy parts I just want other peope's opinions. Does this seem like a bad 1st gear syncro? I should be able to replace that and toss the transmission back in right? Given the fact that I can get it to go in before letting the clutch out I don't think its a shift fork.

Thoughts?

 

[stillrunning]

Can also be bad bearings on the intermediate shaft, mine was kicking out of first and grinding, it was from the bearings being shot.
It's hard to say what it will need until you open it up.
May want to get a new 1st gear as well as the 1-2 hub and slider if it's been grinding a while as well as the syncro.
Forget what the little teeth that lock the slider to the gear are called but they'll probably been worn from the grinding if its been going on a while.
It's a slippery slope really, sometimes it's best to fix what is broke and not even think about the "while I'm here" scenarios, it gets price fast.
To do it right you would also want to check the bearing preloads but again it gets to be a slippery slope to do it right.