Increasingly getting more difficult getting into 1st. At a full stop I sometimes need to shift into reverse before shifting into 1st gear - for some reason that seems to work. Occassionaly it will make a slight grind going into 1st. Is my transmission going south? I replaced clutch cable not to long ago. Any thoughts?

where in the pedal's travel does the clutch engage? you might just need a slight tightening of the cable if it's currently engaging too close to the floor.

+1, see if the clutch is dragging at full pedal travel and then adjust it so it is not.
Also, check the linkage to make sure it can freely go into 1st.

BTW, does it easily go into 1st when the car is not running and the clutch is disengaged?

Is your clutch tube ok? Make sure it hasn't rusted out and broken loose.

I would agree with SUNAB914. You symptoms are commonly caused by the clutch tube breaking loose, and in effect causing the clutch to not fully disengage. On my teener, 1st and reverse were the most difficult. There is an excellent thread here: http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=28313

Olin

if you replaced the clutch cable, have you re adjusted it since it stretched?

Rich

....Definitely,.......Start here!

Clutch tube is intact. Stretched cable...hmmm . I will look into that and report back. Thanks all, Bill

Is 1st gear synchro?

after you have checked everthing already suggested, and it is still bad, try swaping out the gear oil to Redline synthetic. I know this may sound like snake oil but my first 914 had horrible shifting, mainly into 1 and also into 2 gear.

We did all the adjustments, new bushings mounts etc. and it was still bad (in fact the seller of the car told me the shifting was horrible, car needed a new tranny)

I dumped out the lube and installed new Stalube regular 85w-90 oil. There was no improvemnt, upon a suggestion from a friend, I dumped that out and tried the RedLine synthetic gear lube. Problem was solved, the thing shifted perfectly and continued to do so for another 70,000 miles and was still working when upgraded to a side shift.

i could hardly believe the improvement and the fact that it worked for another 70,000 miles (the oil was changed during this time)shifting in the higher gears improved too, even though they were not a problem, they became butter smooth, even on ice cold days with the Redline, with the regular oil all the gears would be so thick that you could feel the oil fight the shifter. the Redline solved all the clashing gears in 1st and 2 nd. Truely a mechanic in a can.

hopefully all you need is a clutch cable tightening.

Funny, my experience with Redline MTL was exactly the opposite. Had a box that worked pretty well. Changed to MTL, and the box quickly went to s**t. Even the spider gears in the transmission were trashed, which my mechanic (30+ years as a Porsche specialist) said he'd never seen before.

He chewed me out pretty thoroughly for running "that red crap".

--DD

I go with Dr. Evil on this one. He suggests dino oil, so thats what I put in it. Redline is too slippery, from what he says.