I have a 98 Mustang V6 with Manual transmission.

I recently had the whole clutch assembly and flywheel replaced. After this repair, I started having problems getting into 1st gear. The shop said it might be a stretched clutch cable and replaced that. Now it's even worse.

When I'm in 1st gear and starting from a stopped position, the car shakes violently like if a person was trying to start from 5th gear. If I push in the clutch just a bit, it will sometimes stop lugging and shaking. I'm also starting to have problems getting the car our of reverse.

What is the problem? Did the shop mess up? Am I losing my 1st gear in the transmission?

 

it sounds like the clutch needs to be checked out again by the shop or maybe a different one. It sounds like its not disengaging all the way when the pedal is pushed in. You may can solve this on your own by getting something like a steeda clutch firewall adjuster and quadrent. That way you can adjust the release to a higher posistion therefore allowing the clutch to possibly completely disengage.

let us know what happens

 

I had the almost the exact same problem. I got a centerforce clutch and after about a month it started getting hard to put into 1st and then got real bad a while later and it was very hard to get into any gear while moving. I thought I just killed the synchros from rowing the gears so hard and often. Then I thought it might have been a strecthed cable/flexing quadrant when I heard the tranny grind with my foot completely in the clutch pedal. So I got steeda replacements for those and a firewall adjuster. That didn't fix it either so it turned out to be a bad pressure plate that wasn't letting go. I swapped in a SPEC Stage III clutch and pressure plate and haven't had a problem since.