I have a 98 Mazda B3000 4x4. Great little truck, except shifting. Since I bought it new (currently has 50k miles) MAzda has replaced under warranty (2) complete clutch assemblies, master and slave cylinders, and yes the entire transmission. Still very hard to shift most of the time especialy into 1st, 2nd. You sure won't leave a light quick if you are in neutral. Any one else havin this problem? It makes me wish I had bought a Toyota Tom T.... :-(

Sounds as if it is the leakage from the shifter to the transmission if the rest has been replaced. I know mine is a little stiff from 1st to 2nd when it is cold since I had all the seals replaced and they put synthetic fluid in it. So I just let it warm up a little prior to going, and I shift between 1st and 2nd in the driveway before I take off. Now if you are downshifting into 2nd and then 1st, you can only downshift into 2nd if you are less than 30 mph and 1st less than 15 mph. (Don't know the metric conversion off of my head). I don't know if this is a mechanical limitation built into the transmission of an electronic limitation. I taught myself how to drive so I didn't learn to downshift to slow the truck down so I don't run into that situation. Hope that helped. Brooke

I dont know if this will help but when my truck was hard shifting i found that I had this little teflon clip missing off of the shift fork.

when downshifting I have learned and have checked the owners manual of my ranger that you can shift and down shift properly in 10 to 15 mph incraments, but if you really had to get your truck to move fast this is how you could shift, it does put a strain on your transmission though. 0 to 30 1st 30 to 50 2nd 50 up 3rd This is for a four cylinder for quick get up third gear is a good gear to keep in at a high speed then can shift as you want. but for any truck The key for this kind of shifting is to redline in each gear for the quickest performance. My ranger redlines in neutral around 7thousand.

Hey, I had the same problem on my 95 Ranger XLT 4x4. Really hard to get it into 1st and 2nd at stoplights, right? Both my wife and I got used to shifting down while you were rolling to a astop and keeping your foot on the clutch. I also went through 2 clutch assemblies. In my case, I ended up spinning the front bearing out of my tranny (tapered bearing) right after the second clutch was put in. I had my tranny rebuilt and they found at that time that the synchro for first/second was worn so I always blamed it on that. I've got about 25,000 mi on the new clutch and rebuilt tranny with no problem yet. I'm really surprized that replacing the tranny didn't fit it...I wonder if this is a more serious issue that they "accidentally" fixed on mine??!?!?

wow, that seems really weird a new clutch and rebuilt tranny wouldn't fix that. maybe something else in the equation, have you pulled apart the shifter assembly to see if anything wrong, or maybe try swapping shifter bushings. First gear I have trouble hitting unless its stopped or near stopped. 2nd gear I never have trouble with, I have the mazda 5spd tranny. paulanschel <