Hi everyone, So my 2002 Maxima 6 speed started having some issues over the last month.
When the car is cold 1st gear and reverse is hard to shift into. When it's cold and this happens, sometimes putting it in reverse makes a noise.
After the car warms up all gears shift fine.
It almost feels like if I was able to press the clutch pedal in a little bit more the shifter would go in without any issues.
Any thoughts?

I've already checked the fluid level on the reservoir.
What should I do next?
Change the Trans oil with Redline Mt-90?
Adjust the clutch pedal?

The car has about 135k miles and when i bought the car with about 125k miles the clutch had been replaced and there wasn't any issues.
The clutch still grabs all the gears fine, it chirps second and third gear just fine.

 

Quick update: I adjusted the pedal 3 turns and its seems to shift into 1st and reverse a lot smoother now. I'll have to let the car cool down over night and test drive it tomorrow to see if that resolved my issue.

 

That is exactly what it should be, that the pressure plate isn't actually letting go of the disc FULLY. Might also be your slave is getting lazy OR the master which can sometimes happen as well. be sure to check the fluid in the rez.

 

Drove the car this morning to work after it cooled off over night. The issue seems to have gone away, or maybe it's too early to tell. Either way, the issue didn't happen this morning so that is a plus.

Yesterday when I was adjusting the pedal, i turned it 4 times in instead of out and tried to put it in 1st gear and it grinned like a M*%^&er. I turned it back 4 times to the original position and did 3 more turns. Looks like the pedal feels better in this position.
Will keep you guys posted. I know based on the search i did in regards to this issue, some had to replace the clutch to fix the problem. I hope I won't have too.

I'm going to drain the trans fluid this weekend and put some fresh oil since I don't know when the last time it was replaced.

 

Odd. I've never had to adjust the pedal (three 6 speeds). Did you originally have the .5-1" of free travel at the top? Maybe whoever replaced the clutch adjusted the pedal and messed it up. There's no reason it should ever need adjusted afaik. Perhaps if you wanted to run the clutch into the ground, but still have it engage at the same point.

 

I didn't bother to check to see if it had the free travel.
It could've been the last person who did the clutch job might have tinkered with the pedal but when i bought the car it shifted into gears perfectly. The issue started after I loaned the car to my brother who was just learning how to drive stick shift cars. He must have used it for 4 months before I noticed it. I borrowed my car back to pick up some items that required a 4 door car and thats when I noticed how hard it was to shift into 1st and reverse.

Do you think the issue might have been caused by the result of a "new driver". My brother might have wore out the clutch a bit since this was his first stick shift car.

 

Wearing the friction would make it disengage easier. Maybe you just have some air in the line from a bad master cylinder or during clutch replacement? But even then it should shift fine. I've had my pedal go to the floor before from air and once pumped back up, it still shifted fine. So...maybe you have air in it and it was improperly adjusted?

They are very hard to bleed with the stock lines, so I imagine if the mechanic disconnected the slave/rubber line, then it would have air in it. I couldn't bleed it and gave up. I cut out the stupid stock **** and replaced it. https://maxima.org/forums/5th-genera...pp-rescue.html It's a 10 min job with bleeding and you won't be cussing nissan, throwing tools and punching babies just b/c of some jackass engineers.

 

It's possible that your brother didn't wear the clutch but "cooked" it instead. As Korn said, a worn friction surface will let it shift fine until it finally starts to slip.

If a clutch gets overheated through abuse it can cook the release fingers and take some of the temper (heat treating) out of them. The result is that they'll be less stiff and will flex just a little more before they actually start moving the pressure plate. To compensate, you'd have to push further to achieve the same release. This "pushing further" is effectively what you did when you adjusted the plunger at the pedal.

If this is what happened, it doesn't sound like your brother damaged it. More like he changed it a little and you were able to compensate for the change. He may have shortened it's life a little but that's in the long term. As long as it keeps working, and he doesn't abuse it any more, I don't think there's any more you need to do.

 

Thanks for the input guys.
I do want to bleed the line but heard it was a PITA just as Korn described it.
Why is it such a pain? Is it because it requires two people or just the location of the bleeder screws?

Quick update:
Test drove the car to work this morning again. 1st gear goes in smooth but reverse still has a little tension going in.
Could it be the linkage below the air intake?
Does that get worn over time or is there any adjustments there?
I read there is an aftermarket replacement part under the shifter somewhere that has to do with the shifting as well?

Car runs good but i'm not 100% happy with it right now. I'd like to figure it out if possible.

 

The line is about 15 ft long at least and goes up and down and corkscrews, plus the upper bleeder just complicates it more.

Don't even bother with that crap. It's so satisfying to get rid of it.

 

I see. Do you have a link to the replacement part that people upgrade to?Or a how to thread?
I should start looking into that.

 

I put my thread link in the post last night :P. Unfortunately, it never seemed to attract much attention.

Can you see it this time lol https://maxima.org/forums/5th-generation-maxima-2000-2003/682182-screw-ss-clutch-line-nicopp-rescue.html

 

Yeah, once you get air into all that mess it's nearly impossible to get out. I pulled mine out and was amazed my how many lines and blocks there are. It did feel pretty satisfying to cut/yank it out. I built a new, more direct, metal line and replaced the old rubber line but the SS line is still on my want list.

Another thing that happens over time is the rubber part of the line gets soft and expands under pressure. This will cause weird issues as well.

 

Upgrade the lines imoo

 

How hard/complicated is it to remove all the existing stuff?
Is there any "how to" Links?

 

You don't have to remove it all. Just cut both ends off, so they're out of the way if you want and run the new line.