Second Gear Popping Out?

2002 996 with 115K miles. Just recently second gear has been popping out when I downshift. Other that tne usual notchy up-shifts into second, the tranny is working fine. Anyone know what may be casuing it to pop out when down shifting into second? Is there an easy fix, or do I need a re-build?

second gear pop out is more common in the TT. Those guys would probably have a better answer.

I had the same problem. Gbox detent fixed it.

Yep this is a common issue with the 996 street car, as well as the TT, GT2, and GT3 gearboxes. The engagement of the operating sleeve to the dog-ring is quite shallow. Damage to these parts, even very minor, can cause this issue to come up. For many people changing out the detent to allow for a deeper engagement to the dog-ring has helped resolve this issue, for others a rebuild was needed in conjunction with this part to totally take care of the issue. If you have more questions feel free to contact me and I will be happy to try to answer them for you. Erik Johnson

Given the mileage on your car I am going to say that it's a wear and tear issue and not the poorly set stack height issue that plagued mostly the 996 Carreras and Turbos and caused the pop out issue everyone talks about. The Gbox detent won't fix a 2nd gear that is worn out. If it didn't start until now, you didn't get one of those defective gearboxes in the first place. I would start budgetting for a rebuild. The beauty is that on that gearbox you can get separate 2nd gear idler gears. Almost every other gearbox that Porsche/Getrag has ever made that has an integral 1st and 2nd gear mainshaft has required replacing the mainshaft when you get a worn out 2nd gear. Not yours. Also be sure that your gear oil isn't old. The factory service interval is ridiculously long and doesn't do you any favours with respect to wear on the components. I recommend 15k mi for a street car and if it has been in there longer than that, you have probably lost a lot of viscocity. Sometimes fresh oil makes little synchro and engagement problems go away for a year or more before you need to consider something more drastic, like a rebuild.

age old question, but which oil brand?, I ask as i changed mine for the Porsche stuff last year at 42k, yet i was disaponted that the shift quality wasnt any better

Some people prefer the shift quality of Redline, especially when cold, but be aware that any oil that is more slippery and shifts "quicker" is also going to wear your synchros more quickly. We as humnas will always be able to yank the stick faster than the synchros can synchronize. The smoothest shifting is down by making the synchros work as little as possible, and on street driven cars what I see is that people often shift way too early. Short shifting does little or nothing to protect your engine and gives your synchros a workout.

I had a similar issue when the at was cold. 1-2 shift sometimes did not engage completely and it would pop out. A fluid change to lubo moly improved the issue drastically. I will be doing the gbox detent when the tranny is out for clutch work soon. my car has 58k.

Matt brings up a good point here and one that everyone is normally told when they order a detent directly. The issue at hand here is that there is damage internal to the gearbox that is causing this pop-out issue. While many many people have had great success in remedying this issue with the use of our detent, if that the damage is too extreme, it will NOT always resolve the issue, and a rebuild will be needed. As to the year of your car, and any modification that Porsche might have made to resolve this issue in the later generations of the 996 gearbox, we have not seen this to be true. They still have the same issue as the earlier generations of the gearbox. With the miles that you have on your car, and gearbox. There is likely to be other issues at work here that would need to be addressed. That said the detent may at least buy you some time before a complete rebuild would be needed. Erik Johnson

I have the write up for the gbox detent... just do a search on my threads.

Quotes source post: 10380895

at what RPMs should we shift?

Quotes source post: 10385595

Above 5000rpm. Either that or shift really slowly...

thx

Hopefully you caught it in time. I did not, but GBOX took care of my rebuild and the trans has been like new ever since. They do great work.

For my '00 C2, gears 1, 3, 5 & 6 engage very smoothly but for gears 2 & 4, you really feel the synchros working much harder, sort of feeling gears engaging through the stick. I do not have pop-out issues ... yet. As suggested below and since I have had the car (1 yr ago), I've resorted to engaging these 2 gears especially really slowly, which suits me fine 95% of the time as I don't track the car. In my case, I'm curious as to how much a rebuild would cost; ball park, of course.

I would advise anybody looking for transmission work to steer clear of GBOX as they are not a reputable shop. you can read an incident here at www.ripoffreport.com http://www.ripoffreport.com/gbox-por...rado-d2005.htm please read this in depth before you send anything to GBOX; there are many other reputable shops that are honest and will do good work. Doing your homework before hand will save you much grief.

I think that you will find that a great many people are going to disagree with your assessment of GBox and our reputation. While I would normally respect your opinion as well as your right to express it, the above write up is simply not accurate and does not represent all of the facts. That said I think I will simply steer away from being drawn into a discussion of this incident yet again. Simply repeating your mistaken interpretation of the events over and over, does not make it any more truthful. We appreciate the opportunity to help as many people in the Porsche community as we do, and look forward to being of continued help well into the future. If anyone has questions about this or anything else, please feel free to call me direct. Erik Johnson [phone removed] work

Simply not the case and those that have been burned by GBOX should be a beacon to everybody looking for transmission work Salesmanship IS your best quality (and only one) but if you can't back it up with quality results then it makes its way to the forums We've seen this with other vendors as well. Unfortunately too bad for you. But for those willing to listen it will be time well spent on their part. You reap what you sow. Funny how that always Comes true isn't it? Ask Bernie Madoff.

Thanks Erik at Gearbox. How much is a rebuild? Can just the #2 gear & synchro be re-done?

You can get yourself a new gearbox for a bit more than a rebuild. Make the right choice.

ebweber, Who services your car for you? Goldcrest Motorsports is local to you and knows how to rebuild those gearboxes. There's no compelling reason to ship your gearbox to get it repaired. It's not like it's a racecar...

Quotes source post: 10405317

yes... local service shops will be accountable because they are in the same state as you - if your not happy with the work from an out of state service shop there is very little you can due to settle the matter legally because of geography and all the red tape it takes to get a legal settlement going.

Goldcrest would indeed be a very good option for you locally. We work with them quite a bit and they are all great guys there. You might even get lucky and get to meet up with Jack Baldwin while you are there. He runs World Challenge and has them do the teams setup, etc. Either way we are happy to help, Erik Johnson

Hello Gents, Long time, no talk. My p-car is going to need a tranny fluid change this year. I've been running Swepco for 2 years and I am not very satisfied with my shifting performance. What grade Redline are you running?

Quotes source post: 10408471

for your 996 it's best to stay with stock fluid... I've tried a bunch of them and porsche OEM fluid is good stuff... just flush out every 2 years and if you track dump it every 12 track hours. FWIW my shop doesn't like redline

Quotes source post: 10408235

[Image-only post; no author-written text. Original image references:] https://rennlist.com/forums/graemlins/roflmao.gif https://rennlist.com/forums/graemlins/roflmao.gif

Quotes source post: 10408471

While I would agree with the advice to run the factory fill on your gearbox, if you must run Redline, use the 75/90w MT (not the NS). You want the friction modifiers that are present in their standard gear oil. Redline's marketing is a little confusing. Most companies have a special version when they ADD friction modifiers. Redline does it backwards and their NS is their "special" version. This assumes your car is a daily driver non-track driven vehicle. Track var versus street car are two different beasts.

Quotes source post: 10399368

Folks it must be made clear who is the liar here and continues to misrepresent and engage in fraudulent activity with a string of dissatisfied customers. I gave Erik and GBOX a chance to make things right... and waited quite patiently and haven't received any responses. That being the case I wanted to share this with the community here... this pretty much puts the nail in the coffin as to who is telling the truth here and the Erik and GBOX are indeed the individuals and business tied to the report on www.ripoffreport.com (search GBOX)

OK, now Im confused. There is more than one Gbox? So "The Race Line" Erik Johnson is still using the Gbox Rennlist account? Is someone pretending to be Erik? Maybe they forgot to edit the automatic signature line thats set for every post.

Same Erik Johnson. Erik had left GBOX for a while and now he is back. It's when Erik was gone I was able to find out only after the fact that he never even returned my original gearbox and didn't even tell me. Erik had charged me for a few extras but never told me about the "switch". I had found this out from the owner when I voiced my complaints and he mentioned that the gearbox I sent was not rebuild able and I still owed them $1000 !!! Yeh right! I was flabbergasted when I heard this and also to hear they had sent me back another gearbox without even telling me and at no time did they ask for $1000 until I complaint. Looking at their invoice its obvious they creates some line item entries to cover for this. Bandits. Stay far far away from GBOX.

T, thats why there should be a clear understanding in writing anytime an expensive repair, re-build, core, etc. type job is done. I would imagine there should be something even for small repairs that could turn expensive. Surely you guys had something in writing as to your agreement as to what would or would not have been done. Either way, sorry for your trouble or misunderstanding. This may not be the best thread to hash it out. Perhaps a better approach is to advise the new guys to "get it in writing" before an expensive trans repair.

I did get it in writing! Thx for bringing up that important point. I hope all can see how GBOX deals with customers. And for GBOX it will be a good lesson in accountability going forward.

Anyone have any more experience with the Gbox detent? I've only had 2nd gear pop out maybe 2 or 3 times over two years in very cold weather. I'm trying to decide if I should have this installed when I do the clutch. It seems a lot easier to get at when the transmission is out. My concern is that the other gears will engage deeper, possibly doing more harm than good. I may be trying to fix a problem that isn't there. I still have original fluid and will change that in spring (DIY), but am looking at doing the clutch (at a shop) this winter.

I installed the Gbox detent about 2 years ago to solve the 2nd gear pop out (when cold only). It worked and I haven't had a problem since. I haven't noticed any issues with any other gear. If you have the transmission out it only takes 5 minutes to replace. I'd definitely recommend it.