Wassup guys. I'm a newbie here with my hands on a 1997 Cavalier Z24 2.4L. I picked it up off this girl, single owner, with 151K miles.......for $500. The car is very pretty, but the engine needs it's work. So far I have replaced the water outlet which was leaking (thinking it was my main cause for coolant disappearing) and now I am showing slight signs of a little white smoke upon starting. The coolant is disappearing with no more signs of visual leakage after the outlet was fixed. Obviously it's internal, but not into the oil....yet. I've got a head gasket on the side that will hopefully fix this. This past Friday the car started to grind a bit into 3rd (unless you shift slowly then nothing) and won't go into 4th. So we bypass 4th and 5th is no problem. Was checking out the hydraulic at the top ofthe trans after moving the intake out of the way, and noticed that maybe the hydrualic arm isn't raising high enough to go into 4th. When shifting the sequences we got up to fourth, where it doesn't go in, my dad pulled the arm higher, and I slighted into neutral and then down into 4th....it went in. Has anyone ever had this issue? I see that this box on top of the trans (where the problem may be) can be removed with 4 - 6 bolts....is this a replacment, hydrualic fluid issue, or lube issue? It basically reminds me of the struts on a hatchback starting to leak, where visible fluid is showing around the hydro strut. The books claim that no adjustments can be made since it's all hydro.....but you never know. The car sat in this girls hands for a year, then a year on my driveway. Shifting was working fine for all this time until Friday. Any info would be greatly appreciated.
drain fluid? or atleast check it if not it sounds like syncros are gone but if u said it didnt do it before i wouldnt imagine sitting there hurt any of that who knows
Will have to either give the drain a try, or start buying some parts. Taking it over to a buddies garage tonight to see what the issues may be. Thanks for the response man...I appreciate it.
BTW - SWEET RIDE YO!!
that would be your 3rd/4th gear synchros...good luck with fixing the grinding..
you might want to look at replacing the shift cables also , and the clutch might be worn out
I don't know what the shifter assembly looks like first hand... but I know the cables ARE adjustable (just not the clutch position). I'd say check those first, take out the centre console and see if it can be worked on.
I have the newer transmission, never worked on the 95-99 manual shifter (Isuzu designed). But I know it's adjustable. Might do the trick for the shifting issue.
Checking first is cheaper
