First Gear Won't Engage

[1995mitsuGSX]

Hey all I just recently traded my 1997 mustang gt for a 1995 mitsubishi eclipse gsx and don't regret it a bit btw. However ever since I've owned the car first gear has never worked, I push the clutch down and shift the car to where first gear should be, the car feels as tho it goes into first but when u let out the clutch it does nothing but grind. All the other gears engage properly and the car shifts smooth 2nd-5th and reverse is fine. It sounds to me like my synchro is bad and that is the only problem with the trans, my friends however have told me these cars are notorious for trans issues and when one gear goes it's not long till the whole trans does. I go to a tech college where i major in auto tech and i plan to rebuild my trans in march when we go thru that in class. My question is one does it sound like my diagnosis is correct? and two other than added wear and tear on my clutch from starting in 2nd all the time am i doing any real damage to the trans driving it this way and waiting till march to rebuild it?

 

[4G63madness]

i would reccomend atleast changing out the tranny fluid. it sounds like previous owner couldve done plenty of launches to it and did them crappy. bad synchros are a common things. rebuilt trannys that come with double synchros and in your case even come with evo gear sets. TRE rebuilds awesome trannys.

as far as waiting till march, i know its hard to do but i would lay off any crazy shifting until then or atleast find one in junkyard or classifieds and eventually send the grinding one out to rebuild.

taking off in 2nd is only really bad if the driver sucks at it. either way i wouldnt doubt youre going to be changing out that clutch soon

 

[1995mitsuGSX]

Thanks for the reply 4g63, the funny thing is just replaced the clutch with a stage 1 exedy about 2 weeks ago , but your right i should probably change the tranny fluid and check the old fluid for metal shavings it'd probably tell me how severe the problem is.