The Infamous 2nd Gear Crunch

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RedFK8

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I’d be happy to even just get a 2nd gear grind. I autoXd mines last Sunday did 5 runs until I felt the shifter pop out of 1st in my hand coming out of a turn on its own and now 2nd gear grinds and pops out 1st gear is non existent and felt blocked off when pulling back into grid. I shortly lost the ability to even shift into 2nd and had to limp it home starting in 3rd gear at every stop. :doh: Also at one point when 2nd gear decided to free up I couldn’t shift out of it like it was seized in that gear. Got home and pulled the shifter cables and tried to shift the pivot points by hand on the transmission. Something is definitely bent or worn in the trans. I can shift the pivot points in reverse and into every gear except for 1st and 2nd. Car has 11k miles and has been autoXd for the last 2 years. Never had a problem until now. Time to see the dealership and see what they find.
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TheSnakeJake

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I’d be happy to even just get a 2nd gear grind. I autoXd mines last Sunday did 5 runs until I felt the shifter pop out of 1st in my hand coming out of a turn on its own and now 2nd gear grinds and pops out 1st gear is non existent and felt blocked off when pulling back into grid. I shortly lost the ability to even shift into 2nd and had to limp it home starting in 3rd gear at every stop. :doh: Also at one point when 2nd gear decided to free up I couldn’t shift out of it like it was seized in that gear. Got home and pulled the shifter cables and tried to shift the pivot points by hand on the transmission. Something is definitely bent or worn in the trans. I can shift the pivot points in reverse and into every gear except for 1st and 2nd. Car has 11k miles and has been autoXd for the last 2 years. Never had a problem until now. Time to see the dealership and see what they find.
oh man! sorry to hear that... definitely let us know what the dealership says.
 

Lust

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I’d be happy to even just get a 2nd gear grind. I autoXd mines last Sunday did 5 runs until I felt the shifter pop out of 1st in my hand coming out of a turn on its own and now 2nd gear grinds and pops out 1st gear is non existent and felt blocked off when pulling back into grid. I shortly lost the ability to even shift into 2nd and had to limp it home starting in 3rd gear at every stop. :doh: Also at one point when 2nd gear decided to free up I couldn’t shift out of it like it was seized in that gear. Got home and pulled the shifter cables and tried to shift the pivot points by hand on the transmission. Something is definitely bent or worn in the trans. I can shift the pivot points in reverse and into every gear except for 1st and 2nd. Car has 11k miles and has been autoXd for the last 2 years. Never had a problem until now. Time to see the dealership and see what they find.
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Tanilroy

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Yep exactly the same way to do it on the FK8.
While shifting felt better after first few thousand miles of use on my 2019 Type R, this adjustment made it even smoother. Thanks for sharing.
 

zeppelin2

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I've also been experiencing first-to-second gear grinds. 2019 model, 9000 kms.

Have had 10 grinds since I got the car. The kind where it makes a cringe-worthy noise and doesn't go into gear.

I've noticed that the grinds usually occur when the car is "unsettled". This can be when the wheels are spinning or it's going through a turn.

I'm also thinking that all the grinds have happened with the rev-match system engaged. Turning it off makes the gear shifter feel different (it moves more freely?) and generally makes the shifts smoother.

I haven't tried adjusting the clutch pedal free-play as I like to think it's been set properly at the factory. I'd hate to mess with it and find out I made things worse.
 


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I've also been experiencing first-to-second gear grinds. 2019 model, 9000 kms.

Have had 10 grinds since I got the car. The kind where it makes a cringe-worthy noise and doesn't go into gear.

I've noticed that the grinds usually occur when the car is "unsettled". This can be when the wheels are spinning or it's going through a turn.

I'm also thinking that all the grinds have happened with the rev-match system engaged. Turning it off makes the gear shifter feel different (it moves more freely?) and generally makes the shifts smoother.

I haven't tried adjusting the clutch pedal free-play as I like to think it's been set properly at the factory. I'd hate to mess with it and find out I made things worse.
Based on what a lot of us have experienced, it actually doesn’t appear that the factory settings are always correct coming off the line. The adjustment of the cmc rod is super easy and super easy to reverse (takes less than 15 minutes to do it the first time if you’ve never done it before following instructions from here, then after you understand what you’re doing it’s goes down to less than 5) . As long as you don’t over tighten the rod you should be fine. Worth a look!
 

zeppelin2

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Based on what a lot of us have experienced, it actually doesn’t appear that the factory settings are always correct coming off the line. The adjustment of the cmc rod is super easy and super easy to reverse (takes less than 15 minutes to do it the first time if you’ve never done it before following instructions from here, then after you understand what you’re doing it’s goes down to less than 5) . As long as you don’t over tighten the rod you should be fine. Worth a look!
I'm not opposed to trying the adjustment, it's just that it would be nice to know what the factory setting is supposed to be. If the factory setting is to have no free play in the CMC rod, then that's one thing. But if it's intended to have some amount of free play and we're removing that, then we're more so just treating a symptom rather than the cause of the grinds itself.
 

Acurately

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I'm not opposed to trying the adjustment, it's just that it would be nice to know what the factory setting is supposed to be. If the factory setting is to have no free play in the CMC rod, then that's one thing. But if it's intended to have some amount of free play and we're removing that, then we're more so just treating a symptom rather than the cause of the grinds itself.
Honda Civic 10th gen The Infamous 2nd Gear Crunch hjgjug.PNG
 

Coldpizza

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I'm not opposed to trying the adjustment, it's just that it would be nice to know what the factory setting is supposed to be. If the factory setting is to have no free play in the CMC rod, then that's one thing. But if it's intended to have some amount of free play and we're removing that, then we're more so just treating a symptom rather than the cause of the grinds itself.
That’s a fair point. There are folks that have had no issues, and some of us that have. Variation in production is one of the theories, because for those that have tried the adjustment the problem appears to go mostly, if not all, away.
 


Lust

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I'm not opposed to trying the adjustment, it's just that it would be nice to know what the factory setting is supposed to be. If the factory setting is to have no free play in the CMC rod, then that's one thing. But if it's intended to have some amount of free play and we're removing that, then we're more so just treating a symptom rather than the cause of the grinds itself.
I’m not sure how many times I have to say this....

check your slave cylinder by pushing it in by hand. The rubber part should move freely, meaning fluid is being moved through the system. This is what ensures the clutch will adjust as it wears.

even if you removed all pedal free play, there is still some free play built into the CMC itself. No reason to be overly paranoid about this adjustment...

here’s a video by Jack’s Transmission explaining the adjustment

 
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aytaka

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I’m not sure how many times I have to say this....

check your slave cylinder by pushing it in by hand. The rubber part should move freely, meaning fluid is being moved through the system. This is what ensures the clutch will adjust as it wears.

even if you removed all pedal free play, there is still some free play built into the CMC itself. No reason to be overly paranoid about this adjustment...

here’s a video by Jack’s Transmission explaining the adjustment

Did you ever make a video on how to adjust the clutch for an FK8? I checked out the s2000 version and it seemed easy enough, but a quick look under the R and it seems different.
 

Lust

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Did you ever make a video on how to adjust the clutch for an FK8? I checked out the s2000 version and it seemed easy enough, but a quick look under the R and it seems different.
i haven’t had the time unfortunately. Been traveling and busy work schedule. Jack explains the adjustment well. It’s a shame the video is old and in 240p. I can maybe do a write up with pictures?
 

aytaka

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i haven’t had the time unfortunately. Been traveling and busy work schedule. Jack explains the adjustment well. It’s a shame the video is old and in 240p. I can maybe do a write up with pictures?
That'd be sweet, no rush for me though as I'm not actually experiencing any grinds but just wanna improve shifting.
 

zeppelin2

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I measured my Clutch Pedal Free Play to be ~12mm which is about the middle of the range of 4.32–17.63mm (Step 9b). Didn't remove the clutch pedal assembly to get the exact measurement of the CMC push rod (Step 11). Not sure how to remove it or if this even something I should be doing myself?

Can you confirm that your document is for the FK8 Type R?

I’m not sure how many times I have to say this....

check your slave cylinder by pushing it in by hand. The rubber part should move freely, meaning fluid is being moved through the system. This is what ensures the clutch will adjust as it wears.

even if you removed all pedal free play, there is still some free play built into the CMC itself. No reason to be overly paranoid about this adjustment...

here’s a video by Jack’s Transmission explaining the adjustment

I understand you're a proponent of making this adjustment. I'm just approaching it from the angle that until I know that my clutch adjustment is out of spec, I prefer not to mess with this sort of thing. For one, I don't like the idea of a higher engagement point when I'm bringing up the clutch. If anything, I wish the clutch pedal stroke was shorter and engaged closer to the floor.

And I still don't fully subscribe to the idea that my grinds are because of a user/clutch timing issue. If all this adjustment is doing is disengaging the clutch sooner, then those times where I know the clutch has hit the floor and I add an extra pause before shifting, I'd expect to at least be getting consistently smoother shifts. But I don't. How and where I position my hand on the shift knob even greatly affect the smoothness of the shifts. And I can't get second gear to grind when I purposely shift fast. It's all so puzzling.

That said, as long as I'm able to mark the original position of the rod and get back to how things are currently, I'm open to trying it. I admit that I won't know if things change for the better until I give it a try. You mention moving the CSC by hand to ensure that the CMC rod hasn't been over-tightened. Do you have a photo of where I can find it? Does it need to be accessed from under the car?
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