I already had to replace my old 5spd tranny, now I have in a VLSD tranny, I have no idea of the milege on it. It has worked fine for the last 20K miles, goes into gear and drives good except all of a sudden its like 1st and 2nd gear are not there. Its sort of like how you can't go left beyond 1st and 2nd normally, but all of a sudden the barrier will be at 3rd and 4th. I can go through 3, 4, 5, R, but I can't get into 1 or 2. I have to start out in 3rd full throttle slipping the clutch and then when I slow down again, it will go into 1, 2 fine. This happens intermittantly and there doesn't seem to be any pattern to it doing this. I hope that made some sense, Any ideas as to what might be wrong?

One other thing that I've noticed recently is that when the car is in neutral and I let the clutch out, there is a grinding noise, but when I push in the clutch it goes away. Could this be related to my transmission problems?

 

anyone know what might be wrong?

 

My instinct is that the problems are unrelated, although I can't tell you for sure.

Usually a noise that happens with the clutch in but not out is from worn input shaft bearings.