I recently got a '94 Camaro that has the 3.4 and a 5 speed. As I release the clutch, the shifter will move forward and backwards a few times. It does this the most when I shift in to second, it's pretty noticeable in first as well, and going into third doesn't seem to give me any problems.


I was thinking maybe it was the tranny mount, so I got under and took a look. The rear mount does look a little dryrotted, but it didn't seem to be too compressed or anything.


Do you think this would be caused by the mounts, or something else?

 

Sounds like the trans might be lifting on you. You need to jack up the trans a little (with a block of wood spanning the pan) to check if the mount is torn. It could be ripped in half for all you know, but with the weight of the trans and engine on it, you may not see the split.

 

I jacked the transmission up, and the mount still seemed to be decent... I think. I may be looking at the wrong thing.

The piece I'm looking at is on top of a crossmember towards the rear of the transmission.

Where I'm confused is... when I jacked the transmission up, it lifted right off the crossmember. Is that supposed to happen? And if so, what's supposed to keep the transmission from lifting up?

 

The mount being in one piece is what keeps the tail of the trans from lifting. Yeah the mount is between the trans and crossmember, so that should be what you're looking at. But if the jack is getting the trans to raise up (noticeably), the mount is bad.

 

Well the transmission lifted right off of the crossmember, with one piece of the mount attached to the crossmember, and the other piece attached to the transmission. It didn't look like it was broken, but if it's supposed to be one piece, it definitely is.

I'm gonna head to the parts store and see if they have one in stock. I'll post back once it's replaced.

 

"One piece", meaning all together as a unit.
The upper metal part and lower metal part are sandwiched together by the rubber filling!

 

Well I got the new one in, and that fixed it

Just out of curiosity, what hold the pieces of it together? Cuz it was the bottom part of it that was unattached from the rubber middle/top pieces.

It looked like there was two pins or something that held it all together, but they looked pretty skimpy. Is that really all that's holding them together? :O

 

The rubber is simply bonded to the metal, that's why they can come loose.
Whereas performance urethane mounts have an internal interlock (tabs on both metal parts) that's molded into the urethane, which prevents separation.