Hey, need some help finding out whats wrong with my wife's car. We have a extreamly hard time shifting into gear, both driving and when stopped. Alot of time I will go to shift and the gears catch and the stick scares you as it vibrates and you hear that horrible grinding gear noise. Sometimes its ok but most of the time, I need to rock back in forth to get it into a gear, its getting to the point where I feel unsafe and sometimes we half to start out in second. I feel this has something to do with the clutch and transmition. Its a 2003 v6 manual with 140k. Anyhelp determining what I need to have looked at and what the cost will be would be great. I would like to have some kind of idea on what to tell our machanic. Thanks

 

I would look at the clutch master cylinder reservoir and see if there is any loss of fluid. Look at the slave cylinder to see if the rubber boot is filled with fluid.

Try getting the car into 1st at a stop, then hold the clutch pedal down. Does the car start to move like you are letting out the clutch?

If you pump the clutch pedal a few times quickly while in neutral, push the clutch pedal all the way down, then quickly try to shift into gear, do you have the grinding sounds?

 

Not all that familiar with whats where under the hood in a honda, I am just a basic. Half the time It wont even go into 1st, and then I have grinded the gears going from 4 to 5th. Scares the crap out me ! I can probably find where the resivors are, but have no idea what a master cylinder boot or slave cylinder look like.

 

The clutch master cylinder will be in the engine bay in front of the clutch pedal. The slave cylinder will be on the transmission. Here is a pic of the parts diagram. 7 and 20 are the master cylinder. 9 will be the slave.

If you go to the common diy thread on top of the gen tech help forum, there is a link for online shop manuals where you can download a 03-07 shop manual that should help. Open the trans/drive line, manual transaxle, clutch, then click on component location index on the right side. I think this manual only works using internet explorer.

 

I have a 2003 accord EXL 4cyl 5 spd and am experiencing exactly the same symptoms. I checked the master cylinder fluid and it was a little low (not below minimum) so I topped it off. No change. Still very stiff shifting and a hard time getting into 1st when stopped, also when stopped and I try to put it in first the car nudges forward, also grinding gears when driving. Any ideas? Thanks!

 

Bad master cylinder, bad slave cylinder, throw out bearing is shot. I would start at those. But unfortunately if you dont have a shop to work it dont even bother dropping your trans yourself unless you really think you can do it.

 

I have a 03 Accord, 4 cyl manual, and I had the same problems with shifting. It got so bad that my clutch would not disengage and the car would move as soon as i turned the engine. I already took it to a shop where they said the slave cylinder seized, so they replaced the slave and the master cylinder for good measure. The car ran good after that, for about a week.
The same problem came back where I have a hard time shifting. Shifting into the low gears especially is really hard to do. Apparently there is another problem I need to fix here, any suggestions?

 

Not in my book; take it back to the shop that didn't repair it and
have their general warranty / workmanship guarantee fix it.

 

First, how is the fluid level (and appearance) in the clutch reservoir? Something bad going on would indicate the shop missed something like the piping & hose connecting between the master & slave.

If that's OK, there's another possibility, although the repair shop should have spotted it.

If the clutch disk is getting worn, it's possible that parts of it are fraying or warping to the extent that it's dragging even when the hydraulics are working fine.

I think it would be possible to judge the correct operation of the hydraulics by watching the throw-out lever moving when someone pumps the clutch pedal. Measuring the distance the lever moves back & forth is the thing, but I'm not sure what the correct amount should be - maybe 10mm or 15mm??