My '01 Stratus will not go into first, car on or off. I have searched around for possible reasons for this but have come up blank after 3 hours of hard googling.

2.4L SOHC, 5 speed transmission.

If anyone has any information on this issue, or a transmission diagram I can look at to do a tear down, it'd be much appreciated.

 

I would suggest you have a technician using a DRB III scanner scan for transmission codes. That will reveal the next diagnostic step to get at the root of the problem.

 

If you have a 5-speed manual transmission, the scanner isn't going to tell you anything about it. I think the previous response mistook your car to have an automatic. I'm assuming that you have a manual. I don't believe that any year Stratus had a 5-speed automatic transmission. If one did, I don't think it would have come on the base model (2.4l SOHC).

I'm thinking that there are a few possible issues here:

1) Driving style. If you are trying to downshift into first too early, you won't be able to. You never mentioned when it acts up or when it works again. If it acts up when you are zipping around trying to downshift from 4th to 1st, then it's likely you. If it clears up when the speed drops to below 10mph, then it is you.

2) Worn synchro's. If someone has been 'zipping around trying to downshift from 4th to 1st' and forcing it into 1st the synchro is likely worn. Once worn, it'll act up. It'll show up more when it's needed more (bigger differential between shaft speed and gear speed).

3) The linkage is out of adjustment. I don't know if your car uses cables or linkage, but one component could be on its way out (worn / stretched) causing difficulties.

 

I just recently bought the car, so I haven't done any zipping around in it yet. The previous owner told me that it quit going into first after he had the clutch redone at a shop. Thank you for the info deadkenr, I will look into those.