Just my 2 cents as I browse through this, I drove a car before that had the same problem, and aside from the fact that it was a Mustang so it inherently sucked ass, synchro and whatnot will do that to the trannie. Its really not incredibly hard to change out the synchro and even 2nd gear - I mean don't look at me to do it, but if you know your share about cars you could probably get-er-dun.