Can anyone that knows anything about manual transmissions go to the link and tell me what it looks like happened to you?

My buddy has an '03 Acura RSX Type-S. He had a problem with his 2nd gear grinding, took it in, tech replaced "everything after 1st gear and before 3rd" i.e. all of 2nd gear, the shift forks, etc. When he got the car back, it had a whine that only sounded in 2nd gear, similiar to the whine you hear from reverse on a lot of cars.

Well, 2 weeks later, he goes to shift into 2nd, heard a clunk, and then in starts grinding. 2nd gear was non-existant. He drove it 10 miles home, and the further he went, the quieter the whine got.

The dealer pulled it apart today, and goes "Holy crap! This is from abuse!" He is pretty tight with his service adviser, his mom has been using the same guy for 13 years now. So, they aren't super trying to screw him, although it has the pass a visual from the service manager. They aren't sure if they can get it covered under warranty or not. In the event it is, they will put a reman unit in.

We talked to the technician for about 30 minutes today, he said that the only way that would happen would be either shifting without using the clutch, or letting the clutch up too soon. No other way is feasible, and nothing that he did 2 weeks earlier could have caused that.

The gear on the input shaft is toast, hard to tell in the pictures. I mean like you can tell there used to be ridges for the gear, but now it is like 3/16" tall ridges. The other half of 2nd gear, which is on the output side, had a chunks missing in places. The ring gear had a couple nice groves in it also.

I circled the problems with the yellow, and then you can click the picture to supersize it. (5 megapixel).

Link is: Here

Also, if the clutch was let up early, wouldn't the synchros be worn? They have about 400 miles on them, so damage should be noticable.

Thanks in advance.

That looks like some shifts were forced. We have broken teeth off gears, but that was with 700HP race engines.

The syncros wouldnt show adverse wear if he was forcing shifts..etc..

Tell your buddy to ease off on slamming gears. Did the tranny make noise when he first got it? Could be the gear tolerences were to tight, tooth broke and wreaked havok.

He was probably power shifting the thing. Although the technician still said that as long as he had the clutch fully depressed, it shouldn't matter....

I don't even know how a transmission works, besides put the little lever here, it is in X gear.

But, it would sound feasible that the technician screwed this thing up by setting the tolerances to close?

I don't know what happened to that thing but I know for sure that guy's wallet is curled up in the fetal position and wimpering...

Yikes! Those gears are always meshed. The only way to do that kind of damage (if everything was right) is to pass too much torque. Does he have a modified engine? If second gear whined, something wasn't right. It's possible something else came loose in the trans and fell into the gears, chewing them up.

Is it a front wheel drive car? If so I'd think it would be very difficult to cause that kind of damage through abuse, without drag slicks.

Letting up the clutch too early or shifting without the clutch would chew up the sliders and dog teeth, not the gear itself which is always meshed. To do this you would have to be in gear, rev the engine to 6500 RPM, and dump the clutch. But then your tires would just spin.

to me it looks like the gears had a field day eating them selves. i dont think there is much that can be done for setting up tolerances, they are based on the end plates and bearings. as for a whine that would tell me that a gear is not meshing right, i would check the part numbers on the gears, i am wondering if there was a different gear for the tranny for a different year that got installed. or that the gear just was out of spec.

if you can get a mic on the gears and check clearences, you just need a few measurements, like gear diameters and shaft spacing, then just start subtracting numbers till you get the clearance.

also you could check to make sure the gear was not installed backwards, the thrust faces could have been backwards, if one gear was installed in reverse the faces will not mesh right either.

Thanks guys.

Yes, it is FWD. The motor revs to 8 grand, which he shifted (damn quick) out of first and right before the shifter made it's way into 2nd, right at where it would start to go into gear, it just made a quick grind, and then it got slower.