Hard time "finding" the gears

[artpeck]

The ongoing saga.
S III that was stored 16 years. Low mileage. Now running and was running well but now I am having a hard time finding the gears while driving. If I am in 1st or 2nd downshifting or upshifting is easy. But 3rd is very hard to find and when I have shifted to neutral sometimes 2nd is actually still engaged. When I find 3rd which means confirming neutral and then finding 3rd, 4th is easy but 2nd and 1st have gone missing. No grinding when I do find the gears. Easy shifting but when they aren't there they are gone.

I am not transmission fluent and have searched the forum here and read the book but before I start anything I thought I would solicit opinions. I have changed the oil but that was several weeks ago and I did confirm oil level today and it is full.

Ambient temperatures here in northern California have dropped down into the 30s at night so wondering if that is the issue causing something to hang up and I haven't really driven it far enough to really warm it up.

As always any thoughts appreciated.

[bkreutz]

One easy thing to check is the shifter mounting, take the cover off and look where the shifter mounts to the top of the trans. I had a similar problem when I first got mine and I found the mounting bolts were very loose allowing the shifter to move around without moving the linkage. Kinda felt like the old "broomstick in a bucket of oatmeal" description of poor shifters.

[73series88]

is the shifter really sloppy
like it has to much movement
i guess on the series 3 the bottom on the shifter has a small plastic cup that keeps the shifter from getting sloppy in and out of gear smoothly
mine is missing this cup and the shifter is sloppy.
with that you have to be careful to make sure your out of
one gear before you try to shift into another
ive just gotten used to shifting carefully.
just a thought.
aaron

[artpeck]

Thanks. I don't really know if it is sloppy as I don't have a point of comparison but it certainly isn't a crisp clear shift. I will check this out today. Really hoping I don't have to dive into the guts of the transmission, at least yet.

[artpeck]

After doing a little more research I decided to change out the cheap GL 1 gear oil in the transmission to Redline. Inhad originally put the cheap oil in knowing I would drain and replace soon to flush out any crud from sitting for so long. Took it for a drive and every shift was easier than the last and now working well.

[RoverForm]

drove around all weekend running some errands, had this thread and the non-synchro/downshifting thread in mind.

tested out the double-clutch maneuver from 1st to 2nd and felt like i was getting the hang of it.

then i realised that when downshifting from 3rd to 2nd, 2nd seemed to no longer exsist, until i came to a stop, started out in 1st and worked my way up again. odd i thought. looking for explanations...

[disco2hse]

The OP's question has been well addressed, so I am just going to close off the hijack :)

There are few instances when you need to shift from 3rd to 2nd, say climbing a hill and you need some engine speed to accelerate. When coming to a stop it is normal to only change down to 3rd and brake to a halt when you have lost forward momentum. There is quite a bit of difference in gearing between 2nd and 3rd. If you do need to change to 2nd the engine speed needs to be fast or you are moving quite slowly.

HIH