I recently bought an '86 Integra LS cheep. I have to say I am loving this 1st gen Integra but the 5th gear of the 5 speed has a malfunction. It was working when I bought the car but, starting today, just once at first, then again, then getting progressively worse throughout the day, until at the end it is almost totally unusable, the shifter pops back to neutral from 5th when I am at freeway speed. All gears including reverse work fine, as did 5th, until today. I am wondering due to the onset of the symptom whether there may be a shift linkage adjustment that has loosened, although I doubt it as only 5th is effected, or from age and wear this is an internal fault with 5th gear itself, or its synchro, or ?. I have two questions: 1- Has anyone here had a similar experience and/or could suggest alternative possible faults that would cause such a symptom, and 2- Is it possible to service the 5th gear parts without removing the transmission from the car, simply by instead removing the end cover from the transmission thus exposing the 5th gear parts? All replies welcome...

 

You have to take the entire mainshaft out of the transmission to get at the gears, you can't just pop one out unfortunately.

Sounds like a problem with the syncro to me. I know that the original '91-'94 Nissan Sentra SE-R is rather notorious for 5th-gear popout problems. This is a "5th gear kit" for that particular car, I would imagine you'd have to go about fixing your problem in a similar manner.

 

But but but -- the factory service manual states that the main and counter 5th gears as well as the synchro and fork for 5th are to be removed before the case halves can even come apart under "transmission disassembly", so it seems to me that if I am only interested in working on 5th, I would not have to have the entire shafts out, it looks as though I would only need to remove the end cover then the two staked nuts and then the 2 gears and synchro for 5th. Since the service manual says this has to happen in this sequence in order to even get the case halves apart, it seemed reasonable that I might be able to just drain the gear oil and do this with the transmission still in the car? I was just hoping perhaps someone here had "been there done that" and might be able to chime in on it. In any case (pun) I appreciate any and all responses! Keep the words of wisdom coming folks...

 

Ahh see I'm not too familiar with the older stuff. Generally with the newer boxes the whole thing has to come out and apart.