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Bigmatthew86

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I recently picked up a 08 GT premium 5 speed. Always like the body style so I decided to pick one up. It’s in pretty good shape inside & out but has fairly high miles. Right at 180,000. Car appears to be stock except for a BBK intake & muffler delete. It does however shift like a box of rocks. I have a Barton shifter on the way & am going to change the transmission fluid. I know it’s been beat to death but everything says something different. I have 4qts of pennzoil syncromesh I’m planning to put it. Clutch appears to be in good shape but I don’t really know. It is hard to get it in gear or reverse & there is definitely no fast shifting on the table right now. I plan to vacuum bleed the clutch as well. The car is untuned as far as I know. I’m planning on ditching the BBK & getting a JLT intake & a sct x4 unless it just not worth replacing the intake. Car has 3.55’s from the factory but I plan on going to 4.10’s. Other then just general high mileage maintenance is there anything I should look out for? I had a 95 5.0 vert about 8 years ago so that’s all I have to compare it to. It is definitely much more refined. But I have to get the shifting worked out.
 

Mach2burnout

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I recently picked up a 08 GT premium 5 speed. Always like the body style so I decided to pick one up. It’s in pretty good shape inside & out but has fairly high miles. Right at 180,000. Car appears to be stock except for a BBK intake & muffler delete. It does however shift like a box of rocks. I have a Barton shifter on the way & am going to change the transmission fluid. I know it’s been beat to death but everything says something different. I have 4qts of pennzoil syncromesh I’m planning to put it. Clutch appears to be in good shape but I don’t really know. It is hard to get it in gear or reverse & there is definitely no fast shifting on the table right now. I plan to vacuum bleed the clutch as well. The car is untuned as far as I know. I’m planning on ditching the BBK & getting a JLT intake & a sct x4 unless it just not worth replacing the intake. Car has 3.55’s from the factory but I plan on going to 4.10’s. Other then just general high mileage maintenance is there anything I should look out for? I had a 95 5.0 vert about 8 years ago so that’s all I have to compare it to. It is definitely much more refined. But I have to get the shifting worked out.

I can’t help you with the shifting part, haven’t had that issue.

On high mileage maintenance, I’d get on top of all fluids. Unless you have records from the PO, change them all and look for metal while doing so.
Check/change suspension parts as needed due to wear, drive and enjoy.

This car easily has another 180k I’m it if it’s not beat on too severely.


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Bigmatthew86

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Changed oil yesterday & installed the shifter. Plan on doing the tranny tomorrow. I also think I found out my shifting problem. The metal rod that is part of the clutch pedal is broken. So when I push the clutch it’s not engaging all the way. Plan to take it off tomorrow & drill it & tap it.

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Juice

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Hard shifting + high milage= you have a clutch issue.
Keep driving it like that, you will wipe out the syncronizers in the trans. (If not smoked already).
How hard is the clutch to push?
 

Bigmatthew86

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Clutch honestly seems good. I’m not thinking it’s the original. You can be in 5th at 35 & floor it & it doesn’t slip. That piece in the picture I posted was broken loose so it was moving when you pushed in the clutch. I drilled & tapped it about an hour ago. I’ve got a 1/4 x 3/4 grade 8 bolt in there now so it’s tight. I haven’t driven it because I’m letting the loctite cure. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just saying it was definitely not correct.
 

GlassTop09

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That was my problem. Changed the fluid today for good measure. Between the shifter, fluid, & fixing that pin it shifts 1000x better. So if you are having a hard time getting in gear be sure to check that pin & see if it’s moving. I was only getting about 3/4 engagement.
Welcome & good catch\repair!
 

DieHarder

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Welcome & good catch\repair!

Great to see someone going thru basic troubleshooting - inspect/ensure the system is operating nominally before moving onto to the next thing. Keep it up. Great catch.
 

Bigmatthew86

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Car is shifting much better still. Still not as smooth as my old 300zx but not like an old farm truck either. I replaced the front sway bar links & rotated the tires yesterday. It didn’t fix my clunking like I was hoping. Pretty sure my control arms are shot so I’ll replace those & I got tie rod ends as well. Also went ahead & ordered a JLT intake & tuner from bama. Is Lito still the tune guru?
 

Mach2burnout

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Check the upper strut mounts, and the pan hard bar. The usual suspects.

These trans will never shift like your old Z, you can stop shooting for that.

Lito is the man!!

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MasterofDisaster

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Big Matt:

I have to tap the gas to shift into second in cold weather, and I've vacuumed the master cylinder too, so I'm curious. Was your clutch pedal movement lateral? Diagonal? Vertical?

thanks,

MoD
 

Bigmatthew86

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The round rod that goes from the clutch pedal to the master cylinder was broken on the pedal side. So when I pushed in the clutch it was able to rock back & forth so I wasn’t getting a full stroke if that makes sense. If you look under the dash at it & push it in you could clearly see it moving. It is not supposed to.
 

WVOHVANCFL

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I'm watching this thread - thanks! It's interesting that I, too, had a 95 GT 5-spd convertible - AND I had 2 300 ZXs, which I truly loved. First was an 84 (actually a still Datsun). The 2nd one was an 87. I've always wanted to pick up another (project), but I'm thinking that ship has sailed. I now have my 2006 GT 5-spd convertible, and it's bone stock with only 65,000 miles - and I love it as well. Great troubleshooting! I've filed away the info in the cobwebs of my brain in case shifting b becomes a problem. Rich
 

DieHarder

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Car is shifting much better still. Still not as smooth as my old 300zx but not like an old farm truck either. I replaced the front sway bar links & rotated the tires yesterday. It didn’t fix my clunking like I was hoping. Pretty sure my control arms are shot so I’ll replace those & I got tie rod ends as well. Also went ahead & ordered a JLT intake & tuner from bama. Is Lito still the tune guru?

At 180K likely your front control arms & tie rods need replacing. Still, I'd get the car up on jacks and do a thorough check of the front/back suspension levering items around to see if anything is loose/worn. If you do end up replacing the front struts I'd go with the OEM GT500 arms and a set of Bilstein B6 struts along w/the GT500 upper mounts. Might as well throw a set of lower control arms and Bilstein shocks on the rear as well. The handling difference will be night/day.

Regarding the Lito tune. You're going to want to use a laptop computer to capture tuning logs. That means you also need an AF sensor/gauge setup to capture AFR's. Not difficult but does take some installation time setting up correctly. There are several threads on it in the forum. In the meantime I'd recommend taking care of the handling issues and basic maintenance. Speaking of that you might want to pull up the carpets to see if you have any leaking problems and check the quarter panels. Been fighting that on my son's car for years now. Appears we finally have it under control after replacing the metal w/UV light curing plastic.
 

Bigmatthew86

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Got the JLT intake & tuner yesterday so I installed it this afternoon. I got it from BAMA so I only have their 87 performance & 93 race tune at the moment. I’ve been running 87 so I loaded that up & took a spin. Seem to pull a little harder as the revs climb but it isn’t night & day. I’ll fill her up with 93 & load the other time to see if I can tell a difference. Car could have already been tuned as it had a BBK intake already but the previous owner bought it that way. It’s still shifting better by a ton but not where I want it to be. Next step will be to vacuum bleed the clutch. Would motor mounts be the next step?77EA1214-F996-4FC1-9BE5-185D3E5A0214.jpeg49227BC7-71B8-459F-88E6-513BF23B9AC8.jpeg
 

07 Boss

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I'm sure solid mounts will help. They also make some arms that you can buy that brace the tranny. I forgot what they're called or who makes them because I drive an auto but I heard they work pretty good at keeping the tranny from shifting which helped smooth out some people's issues.
 

Bigmatthew86

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Torque limiters. Can’t seem to find them now. I guess they quit making them. Also loaded up the 93 tune. Can definitely tell a difference with that one. Also got in touch with Lito, going to have him do me a tune.
 

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