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Trouble shifting from 3rd to 2nd

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48
41
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
Under 3 Years
Fort Worth
I had some trouble this weekend shifting into second gear under load and at speed to climb the hill at MSRC. The clutch was fully depressed but I could not force the car to go in second gear from third unless the car itself slowed down below 20 mph. Is this a known problem with the TR3650 or some sort of safety lockout? I don't think it's the clutch because it engages well and I don't have the problem anywhere else. Blipping the throttle / increasing RPMs didn't help either - it would grind if I forced it but I could tell it didn't want to go in gear before it ground.
 

JDee

Ancient Racer
1,797
2,001
Exp. Type
W2W Racing
Exp. Level
20+ Years
5 miles from Mosport
Sounds to me like clutch problems, though if it does it only trying to downshift into 2nd then the 2nd gear syncro may be history. What clutch do you have? If it's stock it's likely junk for track work. I had similar problems with the stock clutch, though in my case the trans had also been badly damaged by the clutch not fully releasing, that was with a crappy MT82 not a decent 3650 like you have.

If you rev matched perfectly and it still won't go into 2nd then I would suspect something in the trans is damaged, when you rev match perfectly it should literally just fall into gear. When it doesn't there's likely something wrong in the trans.

Did it just start doing this? If so, something has failed and given how crappy Ford's clutches are on the track I'd look there first. If you're going to track it regularly you really need a good racing clutch.
 
48
41
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
Under 3 Years
Fort Worth
It's the factory clutch. I'm not sure when it started - I almost never run this track so downshifting intentionally into second is pretty rare normally. Any clutch recommendations?
 

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