Second gear pops out when cold

I guess I'm looking for a bit of clarification on the common 2nd gear pop out issue. Now that its down into the 30-40's I'm having a few issues with second gear acting like I only put it in half way when the car is cold. Once I've driven a mile or 2 it shifts great. There is no crunching when doing downshifts to 2nd. It doesn't pop out under accel/decel and goes in to second just fine once the car as driven a bit. But the first 2-3 shifts to second to get out of my neighborhood, the shifter will pop out of 2nd as soon as I move the clutch out. I have an order of transmission oil on the way from Pelican and I'm hoping that helps. It seems completely temp related as the car didn't act this way at all above 60 deg.

I had the same problem, the G box detent solved it. The problem is fairly common.

That's how our's started out years ago. Fresh oil is a good place to start. People will suggest the dtent, but I don't think that's it. I'm not saying not to do it since it's cheap (especially if you can DIY it), just that I don't think that is your issue. As I said our's started out that way. It seemed random, but it was certainly more common in the winter when the car was cold. Getting fresh fluid helped for awhile, but it came back the next winter so I think it was more timing than the fluid helping since we had it changed in the spring. Eventually it progressed to happening more frequently and in the warmer months until I could no longer blame it on atrophied clutch skills so I finally talked to my Indy about it. Without driving the car and just on my description he said it was my 2nd gear synchro and not the dtent. The key point for him was that it never popped out of gear once engaged. We still drove another year and roughly 2k to put off the bill as long as possible. This summer I finally bit the bullet and had the transmission rebuilt and like he expected (though actually much worse) the synchro was worn down completely. The teeth were so thoroughly and evenly worn down that I didn't understand what I was seeing until he showed me the new one next to it. There really was nothing left of the teeth. Everything else in the transmission was in perfect shape. All told we probably drove it with the failing synchro somewhere in the area of 5-6k over 3 years. Maybe not the best thing to do it, but what's done is done and she's perfectly healthy now. So do the fluid and try the dtent, but don't be surprised if it's actually your synchro.

Getting the correct oil is a good move.We have discussed that subject at length ,trying to come up with a better oil choice than Factory-fill Shell and failed.There is a Porsche gearbox guru in Colorado who may have interesting comments about the low temperature issue? He is also an alternative source for the 2nd gear detent . Erik Johnson of Raceline in Colorado [phone removed]

It's probably the oil. If it has been popping out you may want to look into changing the shifter cables as a preventative measure as its really hard on them. The cable is only meant to be pushed from the shifter, but when it gets pushed from the gear box side it's not completely supported by the bowden tube as it is on the shifter side. This can cause them to break or wear out prematurely after they pop out.

There's been a lot of discussion about gear oil. Some other and I tried several different brands as an experiment and found that the OEM Porsche gear oil worked best hands down. No contest. Strange because I have no idea what additives are included but it works. Like night and day difference during cold temp shifting.

Hey there Everyone, The pop-out issue is not linked in any way to the oil that you are using in your gearbox. The pop-out issue is due to damage done to the gear dog ring, and to the operating sleeve. What the detent does is allow the operating sleeve to engage the gear's dog ring deeper, there by allowing the op sleeve to engage a area not already affected. The detent works for many if the damage is slight, if it does not help however, you will need to rebuild the gearbox in order to fix this issue. I would be happy to answer any questions, please send them to my email address though, as I am not always on Rennlist these days and might miss your post. Happy to help, Erik Johnson [email removed]

I had similar issue - changed oil (lubromoly) and did g-box detent upgrade - that was 10k miles ago - issue has mostly gone away - I do still get occasional Pop out but not frequently enough to Justify rebuilding the box yet

Finishes installing the Gbox detent and changed oil (used Porsche's OEM fluid) and despite being in the 30's, no pop outs. I'll try to update this thread again once it has some more miles. Definitely feels like 2nd is engaged deeper.

I put the 'pop out' situation down to old age lol.

I'm dealing with this now, but am going to store the car for the winter when I get something to replace the Audi wagon. Am I good to go if I just sit until the spring before addressing with either synchros or the detent function? I had an E36 M3 with the 5th gear detent issue and it was just plain annoying.

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Hi thin_concrete, While I didn't have a 5th gear detent issue on my previous E36 M3, I found the gear shifts were extremely notchy. I went back to original BMW gearbox fluid and it worked like a charm. Smooth shifts and no pop outs whatsoever. The car previously had Redline oil in it. As for my 996, on very cold days, particularly in the dead middle of winter, my shifts to second gear were notchy, but after changing the gearbox fluid back to original Porsche fluid, it was fine. It usually takes a few minutes of driving in traffic for it to warm up and then it's butter smooth from there on.