Fiat Stilo 1.6 2003 - grinding when shifting

Question

I have a Stilo, and I need to force it(most of the time) to get in to gear 1, and is grinding in rest of them ,but always I got different resistance from the stick. Also in gear 1 is making a funny spiny noise while driving. With engine off is alright.I done the bleeding twice and clutch was changed recently. Could be a leaking from slave cylinder or what else?

Answer 1

A possibility is that the clutch centre plate is not moving on the gearbox input shaft and then "dragging" on the flywheel which makes it hard to engage gears. Sadly the only solution in that case is to open it up make sure it is free...

Answer 2

This sounds like synchronizer problems. What these do is match the gearbox rotation speed with the engine speed. Before these were around, you had to do what's called double-clutching, lest you hear a horrific crunching sound from the gearbox whilst shifting. Might be time for a new box.

If you're getting the difficulty to engage first gear, that sounds like a clutch problem or a shifter linkage problem. Test this; Park on level road. Shift the car into 3rd gear and chuck the handbrake off. Then, at engine idle speed, raise the clutch slowly. The car should stall as you come through biting point. If the car starts to move, labours (drops RPMs heavily) and THEN stalls, you're gonna need a new clutch.

Also, it could be that, as someone else stated, that the clutch friction plate is stuck on the input shaft, through either corrosion or clutch friction material powder from wear getting on the input shaft, causing the plate to stick.

Try double-clutching. The theory behind it is that it matches the gearbox rotation with the engine's idle speed. The grinding in gears, try double-clutching. For example, switching from first to second usually goes like this; Dip the clutch, switch the shifter from first to second, then raise clutch.

Double clutch like this; Dip the clutch, move the shifter from first to neutral, then raise the clutch. Dip the clutch again and shift from neutral to second, then raise the clutch.

If double-clutching stops the grinding sounds, it's going to be synchronizers, and most likely a gearbox replacement or rebuild at the minimum.