Tranny Problem
 

Hey guys, my 2002 sc1 i bought a few weeks ago has been working great. Only problem i have now is that 2 days ago driving home from work, i was cruising at about 60mph. All of a sudden it kicks out of 5th gear into neutral. Has happened 2 times since. Any suggestions on what it could be?

thanks, Abe

Was the engine/drivetrain under load at the time (accelerating), or just steadyspeed on the turnpike, or were you coasting in preparation to slowing down ??

While it could be a number of things all some what obscure and hard to identify, one problem that comes up repeatedly is problems with the cables that hook up from the shift lever to the transmission and the shift lever itself wearing and falling out of it's retaining bracket. There have been a number of threads on that problem. One symptom might very well be that the transmission is not completly in gear thus it is easier to pop out of gear under a variety of driving conditions. So along wih oceanArchers question, how many miles do you have on the car?

Well it has 121k miles on it. It only happened 2 times and they were both while cruising but it was raining very hard, it hasn't happened ever since. I figure it could be the synchronizers but it shifts very smooth and no grinding at all.

Abe, I doubt syncronizers have any bearing on popping out of gear once in. Their function is to allow you to shift gears with out having to learn how to manipulate a crash box (that is something that is non-synchromesh). Any time I have had a problems of that nature was excessive wear, very old age, or linkage that no longer worked very well and the transmission was not actually all the way into gear.
Discounting abuse, 121,000 miles is not enough miles to consider wear as a problem. Athough it would not hurt to verify that the lubricant actually is at the design level and/or change it. Making sure you use the recomended lubrication.
I think (with out looking) that the Saturn manual transmission uses ATF (Sorry I have an automatic and I can look up the statement, but did not) and manual transmissions designed to use ATF must use ATF due to the viscosity. The oil passages are not large enougn to pass the heavy 90 Weight lubricant that was a standard for use in manual tranmissions for ever. If some one trys to do that, the bearing will fry due to lack of lubrication. The heavy lubricant can not get to them.
Although I have a 5 speed conversion on my Javelin using an ATF designed 5 speed that I use Mobile 1 15W50 motor oil for a lubricant. This was based on an engineering document for the manufacturer of the transmission as a superior lubricant for heavy duty usage.
I'm happy with that. But on the other hand my Mitsubishi 5 speed was also designed as an ATF transmission I drove it 270,000 miles and while the transmission was getting notchy, it worked, shifted o.k. and was giving no problems at that time. ATF should lubricate a Saturn 5 speed fine.

transmission issue
 

abe-

i had a similar problem with our 1996 sc2 that has the 5 speed transmission. it turned out that the shifting rod that goes into the trans to shift it had a bunch of crud on it and when i went to shift gears, the crud kept the rod from moving into position thus causing the clip that secures it to the shift bracket to come off. after cleaning the rod with solvent and reinstalling the clip the transmission has worked fine ever since. i do keep an eye on that rod though.