RobG

Back in April I had a shop in Nephi, Utah install a South Bend dual disc clutch in my G56 (2005) truck. When I got it back, everything seemed fine.

A few months later, I noticed that shift effort was increasing. Example... I come to a stop at a traffic light. I let out the clutch and wait. Light changes. I push in the clutch and go for first (or second) gear. It won't go in unless I FORCE It with all my might. It doesn't grind; it just doens't want to go. If I pull it into 4th first (which takes some effort, but less), I can then get it into 1st or 2nd. BUT, when I get moving and go for the 1-2 shift, it's still VERY slow and hard to get it into gear.... ALMOST so long that I have to rev it to get the RPMs back up... but not quite. I asked a diesel mechanic friend in Arizona about this and he suggested the synchros might be going bad. The truck only has 155k on it... the fluid was changed at 100k with Royal Purple Synchromax.

Not long after that, I was having a 5" exhaust put on the truck in Richfield, Utah and I was under the truck with the guy and saw that the entire underside of the transmission was wet. The shop guy looked it over and said it looked like it was coming from the shifter area. I googled and saw that it takes six quarts of fluid, and it took just over two quarts to top it off (to where it runs out of the drain hole). I wasn't in a position to rip the console apart to see what was up around the shifter.

From there, I traveled 500-ish miles to Reno. Today I tore the console out to discover the orange-colored rubber shift boot all torn up, and the whole top of the transmission and underside of the big black rubber boot (that gets screwed to the tunnel) covered in oil and gunk. I took a photo, and then called the repair shop that installed the clutch. I explained what was up (as detailed above), and he had me email the photo. The unsurprising response of course was that they'd be happy to cover the $20 for the new shift boot, but they weren't going to accept any responsibility for their guy destroying the shift boot and (at least potentially) ruining my transmission. I expected this. But that's not why I'm posting.

My question is this... to those of you with direct knowledge of this or similar transmissions (please, no guesses unless you genuinely know what you're talking about), what do you think is the problem? Is it an adjustment? Is it the synchros? Is it something else? The truck is still drivable... it just isn't at all enjoyable. I don't want a new truck because of all the prone-to-fail tech and the emissions BS.

Thanks!

Rob