ATSG.com has just about every trans manual out there.

Pull the drain plug and inspect for metal stuck to the mag plug. If its clean, you probably won't need a rebuild.

@Mike i havent done the drain plug.. all i know is if you try to shift into 1 or 2 you can see the cable bend by the shifter and cables are loose if u unhook at the tranny

also i tried the atsg.. but i cant get past model.. . i cant select an engine size.. thats using chrome..
in IE i cant choose any options

can you see if it shows anything?
2004 chev cavalier 2.2

as i wasnt able to get it to work

i just tried poniatc sunfire 2.2 but all they offered was a cd no parts?

https://www.atsg.us/atsg/catalogsearch/result/?q=4T40E

It'* not working for me either.
wiki indicates you have either the Getrag F23, Getrag 282 or the Isuzu manual.

It'* weird you can get it in gear in 3rd but not the others unless you have a bad syncro. And starting out in 3rd isn't good for the clutch.

You can save yourself a lot of labor money if you can pull the trans yourself and drop it off somewhere that rebuilds them. Or at least drop it and verify if its the shift linkage or the trans itself.

@Mike the mister transmission said it was the shifter itself.. so i swapped it out with my sisters.. that didnt help... i drove it to another transmission place late at night so i didnt have to drive in the town i was in oh its hell trying to start in 3rd gear
my old 1984 Audi 5000 you could start off in 2nd gear it had power.. but this car powerless lol..

but the 2nd place said they they its broken inside possibly fork inside.. but both places told me there was 1 used tranny from a wreckers but when i went it wasnt there anymore... they both didnt wanna offer a cost to work on it or anything..

i have taken it apart well the only thing thats holding it is 1 bolt and the hydruralic cliutch hose is still hooked up... i found a hole in the corner of the engine cradle and wasnt sure if it was worth fixing car..

i do hate how the bleeder screw works u feel like ur gonna break it even if you antisize it and then screw it in and can never disengage damn clip to pull it apart...

but can a transmission place look at it if its not in the engine?

Catching up on this sub-thread: Manuals were like some small fraction of all Cavaliers (and Sunfires) back then. Probably slightly more Sunfires got manuals because Pontiac was building excitement back in those days. No wait, I looked it up:

2002-2003 the slogan was "Built for drivers"
2004 was "Bold"
2005 was [nothing, just "Pontiac" and "Sunfire"] (like they were beginning to give up)

. . . anyways, my point is that since most of the US prefers automatics in this class of vehicle, and these weren't Honda Civics, Mitsubishi Eclipses, or Volkswagen Jettas, so there weren't many built with manuals. The few that were built with manuals tended to go to the ultra-economy commuters and aspiring race car drivers. Out of those, the commuters put 400,000 miles on them if the rest of the car would last that long, then likely sold them to aspiring race car drivers with more limited budgets. Both breeds of aspiring race car drivers likely used them really hard until they failed (transmission/engine/clutch/everything). Shops repairing units like this might tend to shy away from them because of how they tend to get treated versus their warranties versus their popularity, and the money is in the automatics and Asian manuals. If I were a shop that rebuilt manual transaxles in this class, I'd likely get to go through a hundred units out of Civics before I saw any out of GM vehicles . . . then I'm going to struggle to find parts and warrantee one of these for 12mo/12,000 miles? . . . of treatment by the aspiring race car driver that broke it? To say nothing of the rebuild price versus the value of the vehicle. My price to rebuild probably exceeds that in most cases . . . so who is going to pay that much to get their Cavalier/Sunfire manual rebuilt? Just about nobody, which makes it easy for me to turn away work on these. I think you're likely running into some major amount of this.

Anyways, I agree with the others that a rebuild is likely possible, but just about nobody except the hobbyist wants any part of doing it. Maybe if we figure out exactly what make/model transmission you have, we could discover that some close relative of this unit was also in Jettas or something then also discover that Euro shops still rebuild them . . . ? Worth a shot. A lot of those got spread around a lot of manufacturers, and manuals are way more populous on European market cars.

Speaking of hobbyists, when you figure out what make/model transmission you have, you might want to go check out some Fiero forums. Those guys shove all kinds of stuff under the back of their Fieros and are very hands-on and hands-in. Maybe they're rebuilding units like this all the time in their garages etc. and none of the rest of us realize it.

@CathedralCub lots of info there..
so why is europens like manuals more then canadians? least nascar sticks with manual lol

so i didnt know you could bolt up an try to ang engine? but then ud need a special bracket.. or is the manuals on these ecotec engines have a common manual that other brands use?
1 tranny works on multi engines?


ok so how do i know where the model number iis on transmission is it stamped on there so i dont have to pull it off... as i still have 1 bolt holding it and clutch as its easier to keep it on the car for now..

i didnt know it costs more to fix a transmission... i know i had my 2000 dodge ram 1500 automatic transmission mister transmission took it apart and rebuilt it replaced the the worn pieces.. like 500 bucks
is it because its more common tranny or something or autos cheaper.. and more ready avaliable not like the manual..

and is that for all cars manual transmission are a dying bread here in north america?

Transmissions are more complex vs other parts of the car. Takes a special breed of person to even want to open one up.

Most of the cost is labor involved.
On a 2wd S10, one could have a tranny out in a couple hours....4wd, better have gods unlisted phone number.

A good rule of thumb when it comes to shop labor prices...
If the labor $ is low, but the shop is a mess, floors dirty, parts piled everywhere, then its a shop you want to avoid.
I'd rather pay a few dollars more per hour if the shop is clean, techs aren't slobs and they have a good rep. More than likely, the owner is more worried about quality than quantity and actually trains his techs.

Yes, any trans shop can 'look' at a trans while its out. Unless the customer drops the trans off and is complaining of the clutch slipping.

If the fork is broken, it should at least 'GO' into gear, but it will feel like a hot knife in butter because the fork is gone.

I'm starting to wonder that these shops are aware of a high failure rate with these trans, the lack of parts and manuals for them, thus why they are balking at even looking at them.


If you really want to know, pull the trans, drop it off at a shop, give them the symptoms and ask for only 1 hour of diag time. It will only take them 10 minutes to pull the shift tower off and inspect the internals. They should know pretty quick whats wrong.

Long story short: fuel economy incentives. Until just a few years ago manual transmissions were significantly more fuel efficient than automatics. Manual transmission cars are less expensive as well. Win win!

Because they're inherently more fuel efficient and reliable under heavy stress than automatics. Lighter too. A manual in 1:1 is the closest you can get to direct drive . . . while still being able to accelerate from a stop reasonably.

Assuming "ang" is a typo of "any": Well not any ***** nilly. They are designed to fit a form factor that some series of engines are also designed to.

Might work, but I'm not aware of much adaptation in this type of platform. It is relatively easy to adapt a rear-drive transmission across Jeeps and Chevy pickups for example. A little bit of adapting and a drive shaft length change and you're on your way. More difficult on a FWD car. Adapters would change the length of half-shafts and linkages and moves mounts around etc. etc. quickly turning into a nightmare of engineering.

No idea. Maybe? That'* why we want to know the specific model of transmission you have. A lot of times common parts will be used across different versions of the same transmission. Think of it from the engineer'* point of view: If I have a great set of guts and then someone comes along and says "I need a new design for this other similar platform over here", do you start designing an entire transmission from scratch do do the same job under similar conditions? . . . or do you just design a new case for the existing guts and make the bean counters happy?

I wish I knew exactly where for sure. Maybe somebody else will chime in with this.

Manuals usually cost less to repair than automatics, proportional to how much repair is needed. Usually.

This was probably a 46RE, and there were a bazillion of those out on the road, and lots of them had lots of issues. Lots of folks paid to fix them as they were in popular and expensive vehicles. This caused a large knowledge and parts base to exist. Kind of the opposite of what I was explaining in post 16. For $500.00, I'm guessing not much was done.

Yep. Dying breed. A couple of years ago there was even a big hoopla about the last new manual transmission Ram 3500 in the world.

According to this article, only 2.4% of vehicles sold today(ish) are manuals: https://www.carmax.com/articles/stick-shift-index

Personally I'd guess that 2.4% is high.