third gear grinding

01svt-cobra

New Member
Feb 26, 2006
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I recently took my 01 cobra to the track and I ran it several times and all day it was really difficult to hit third gear. So I messed with the stops in my shifter and ran two more times the second time I hit third and it grinded really bad. So I took it on the road just crusing and even when I shift into third slow it grinds every time but it still goes into gear. What is wrong and will my warranty cover this.
 
I had the same problem in my 98 cobra, I couldn't get it into third gear very well and it would grind. Eventually it wouldn't even go in. Turns out there was a crack that had propagaited through the top of the shifter fork where it hooks into the rail. I replaced the whole transmission with a racing one, it was about 2 grand. I'm not positive that the 01s have the same tranny, but the situation sounds very similar. The shifter fork was just a lightweight piece of aluminum and isnt really heavy duty enough for racing. Oddly enough, about 2 months after I replaced mine, a friend of mine with a 98 had the exact same problem.
 
I blew a shift once (the floor mat held my accelerator pedal down) and fried the 3rd gear synchro--sounds like the same symptoms I had--it ground trying to go into gear, once in, it was OK. It got worse quickly and I could not get into 3rd at all due to fear of causing more damage.