[TR] TR3 hard to slide into 1st gear

[Randall]

> Of course that works by letting the 2nd gear synchro slow down the 
> gearbox innards to match the stationary driveshaft.  But there is 
> another possible cause.  At least on my GT6 the ultimate non-spinning 
> status sometimes leaves the shafts in a position such that the dogs 
> for 1st will not mesh easily. 

In addition, I believe what happens is that the 1st gear dogs (on the
3-synchro TR2-3 box) get worn flat, making this problem much worse.  They
originally came to a fairly sharp point, meaning that a little extra effort
on the shift lever would force the gears to turn slightly and engage.  But
after 50 years of 'grinding' the gears at least occasionally, the little
points are gone and there is now a fairly large range of relative positions
where no amount of force on the shift lever will cause the gears to turn and
mesh.

My workaround was usually to repeat the process of spinning the input shaft
again (by letting out the clutch in neutral), then just barely touching 2nd
gear (with the intention of almost, but not quite, stopping the input shaft
from spinning), then hit 1st gear fairly hard.  Takes a lot of practice to
get this just right, so it will go in but won't grind (much) ... I usually
didn't get it quite right <g>

Another (less desirable, IMO) way is to let the clutch out just a little,
while still firmly pushing towards 1st gear.  If you can find that magic
spot where it just drags a little but doesn't really grab, it will turn the
input shaft just enough that the gears will slip in ... but on my car it
almost always wound up grinding the gears, making the problem even worse in
the future.

To really address the problem requires tearing the gearbox down and either
replacing the 1st gear and shift sleeve, or carefully and patiently grinding
each tooth back to a point.

Or do as I did eventually, and convert to a TR6 gearbox <G>

Randall