Picked up a 1352-070 84 Camaro tranny--the guy said on occasion it would not down shift to third. I have removed the shift plate and it seems pretty good inside---I did notice one of the shift forks had one of the blue clips broke and about to fall off. Would this cause the down shift problem, if not what should I be looking for............Thanks....Lee

I would say it is a bad synchronizer.


Jimmy

If those little nobby teeth on the one side of the gear, next to the synchro rings are rounded off too much, It can make it tough to get into gear.

So the forks are not the problem? I`am not the tranny expert but things look real good on the inside---guess I will take it to the tranny shop to have a look. Back at ya later with the results...........Lee

If it was the forks, I would think it would be a problem for more than just one gear.

I had a similar problem on a Nissan 720 pickup. I could shift into first gear, but the trans wouldn't stay in gear unless I held the shifter in place with my hand. If I took my hand off the stick, the trans would pop out of gear, and it only did it in 1st gear. After driving the truck for about 10 years, it got so bad that it would pop out of gear even with me holding the stick and putting pressure on it, so I finally broke down and had the trans rebuilt, and the problem turned out to be a bent shifter fork, which had been bent before I bought the truck. That bent shifter fork only affected first gear; second through fifth were all fine. So I think it's entirely possible that the downshifting problem may be a bad shifter fork too, and it also can affect only one gear, the same way the one in my truck did.

Well I had a buddy who builds race cars and he does a lot of trannys have a look. At one time the tranny was rebuilt and the cluster gear was replaced. With the case opened up he was able to run it thru the gears and spin each one and look carefully at each set. He feels it will be ok without a rebuilt for the kind of use it will get. The blue pad on one shift fork was gone for the most part and he thought it was binding as it was the fork that is used on third gear. We went ahead and did the speedo gear relocation and put the S-10 tailshaft,top cover. Also new rear seal and bushing. Test run with the new engine come spring will tell the tail....catch you on a update then..........Thanks all.....Lee

Yeah 3rd is always the first to go and it's almost always the fork.