Its so inexpensive why not.

 

Thanks for the input, it's appreciated.

 

At how many miles does the second gear pop out begin to show up?

 

Any long term results of this? I'm about to get a ball from Tacoma Screw (I'm near Seattle) and try this.

I just bought my 03 Turbo with 76k on it on sunday and it popped out 3 times on the drive home, during decel. Car has somewhere between 5-600hp and has seen 1 track day.

This looks like a pretty great alternative to running a $200 detent that is seemingly just a longer part. Tim, thumbs up for the clever idea!

 

I'm not sure if it counts as long term, but I have had this done for almost 1 year now exactly, and i daily drive my vehicle. I have had no negative effects on the car. There is a side-effect which it takes a little more effort to change gears, but i have gotten so used to it, that I totally forgot that I had even done this. In my car though, I never had the popout issue, I performed this mod as a preventative.

 

If that ball bearing stops/eliminates 2nd gear pop then it surely qualifies as unmitigated genius.

I've never heard of any of these measures that actually prevents it once it manifests. Maybe this one will. Gl with it. That means your 2nd gear synchro dogring is rounded. Not good.

 

After the installation of the ball, i realized all this did was increase the spring pre-load on the shifter detent thus making it slightly more difficult to change gears, and so i guess to help keep the gear stay in place instead of popping out. If you do have the pop-out problem, TTX50 is probably right about having a worn syncro.

 

11 mo's later, over 8,000 km's, still no pop-out.


I'm not babying it - coast downhill in second gear every morning to get on our main road.


It's worth the effort and hopefully will hang in there until I install the LSD.

 

perfect time to r&r it, and get to the sealed bearings inside the g'box as they dry out. good plan.

 

Well I did this to my '03 turbo which had popped out almost consistently on downhill 2nd gear decel, and it seems to have fixed it. The gear changes are definitely more deliberate and it feels more securely in gear. Before, you could apply light pressure to pop it out of 2nd and now, you have to push it out a lot more. Overall, I would recommend this to anyone as I like how solid it feels on the gear change now.
However, my car came with a poorly adjusted short shift kit so reverse is a seriously difficult task. That's the only downside, but that's only because it was never easy to get into reverse since the shifter wasn't ever adjusted when it was installed. This is fixable.

So onto some install tips...
#1 - remove the cap with a double-wrench on socket maneuver through the wheel well (with wheel removed of course). See the pics:



This makes it way easier, and this is with the front trans mount nuts removed and the trans lowered all the way. To do this, I removed the black metal cover that hides the end of the driveshaft and simply lowered the trans WITH the driveshaft attached. It works fine.

You really can just drop the ball bearing into the detent after removing the spring. I couldn't see where else it would go and it eliminates the need to align the detent on reinstall. I got my ball bearing from Tacoma Screw in a 5/16" size and it fit absolutely perfect. I lubed it with some grease for good measure. I sealed the cap up with some Hylomar, but any light duty gasket maker or hell even teflon tape should be fine. Don't go crazy with the sealant though.

For cap reinstall, I hit that from under the trans with a ratcheting box-end on the socket. See the pic:



For the record, the trans mount nuts and the thin cross brace under it both call for 48 ft/lbs of torque if I remember correctly.

Hope this helps. Oh, and the stainless steel ball bearing from Tacoma Screw was around 30 cents.

 

One more thing:
DISCONNECT THE BATTERY! You don't want to accidentally touch the starter with your wrench. Ask me how I know...
I removed one of the wires to the starter as you can see in pic #2

 

Excellent DIY write up! Thx! Mods this should be sticky'd into the Knowledge Base thread.

Mikey

 

1 year thread necro...for anyone who has done this, have you had any second gear pop out since? Ask as I had this done last week and I experienced a 2nd gear pop-out yesterday.

 

Hi I've been watching this for quite a long time. My 997 is doing the same but surprisingly only in spring and fall. I want to do this, but seeing that you just did it and still have the pop out, that's unfortunate. Did you have a severe case of pop out?

 

Once the second gear pop out happens you need to have your tranny taken apart. It will only get worse!