b-3000 tranny

It's a '96 Mazda B 3000, aka Ranger. 5 speed tranny. At idle, it does not want to go into gear. Push to second gear, then to first, no problem. Drop the clutch and wait, no problem. But, try to go from neutral to first from an idle, not gonna happen without a wait. Any suggestions, or should I just deal with it?. No grindy noises. Yah, the truck has a major butt load of miles on it, and runs great other than this minor inconvenience, but a smooth tranny is always good. Any advise other than just deal with it? Thanks, guys.

Switching to fresh synthetic can help, but it's possible you have lost or are losing the throwout bearing. If it's gone, go ahead and do the slave cylinder at the same time since it's plastic and prone to failure. When it goes completely, it won't let you into first at all unless you bump forward in second and then jump back to first.

Iirc, that's the same m50d that I had in my f150

The M5OD is a great tranny that gets a bad rep. There are plugs and seals that are leak prone. I've rebuilt several at my shop that the customer just had no idea he was running it dry.

First check for a master/slave issue with the clutch. Sounds like its not fully disengaging. Putting it in second or third is easier and it stops the rotation letting you get into first.

... and yes, its a similar tranny. Same basic case and guts. The Ranger/3000 got an M5OD-R1 or -R1HD. Plenty strong for the 3000 and 4000 engines, but not quite as stout as the M5OD-R2 that is found in the F150.

on an aside, I've had great results using gm synchro fluid in one of these. It's not horribly expensive even at the dealer & you don't need much. Was fighting & grinding before, butter smooth after.

Sounds like a clutch problem to me. My car did that and it turned out to be a bad throwout bearing that made it to the clutch didn't disengage all the way.

Strizzo wrote: Switching to fresh synthetic can help, but it's possible you have lost or are losing the throwout bearing. If it's gone, go ahead and do the slave cylinder at the same time since it's plastic and prone to failure.

In my Ranger, the throwout bearing and the slave were the same part. Stupid internal slave cylinders.

you can change it, but the replacement slave comes with a new one already attached (at least the one i bought at AZ did)