Ok if it is cowbell you want....
Doug you could not be further from the truth when it comes to the ZF.
Here is a pic of my actual 2nd gear. As you can see the grooves are on the cone, NOT the synchro. And if you look closely at the inner surface of the synchro it appears to have a coating, albeit worn looking. After a bit of back and forth with Lloyd it is indeed a coating. My concern was that it was rust that had been given a smooth over with use, but thankfully not.
Anyway from my observations and extensive experience with ZF's (Zero) it would be safe to assume that the synchro has a softer wear surface applied to the inner. This is a sacrificial coating, and once this wears away the hard sychro itself wears on the cone damaging it. That is why Lloyd always says in his posts, if it grinds into second "STOP", because you will start damaging the cone and in turn need to replace the gear. Not to mention wearing the teeth on the slider.
So we can safely say the sychro does indeed care how much clearance it has, A. because of wear of the coating, and B. because when the sychro butts up against the dog gears it ceases to apply pressure to the cone and not longer "Brakes" the motion of the gear wearing the slider teeth.
As for the fluid, the first thing I did was change the fluid to Redline Light Weight Shockproof. And before I did that I never had a problem, but a few months after that I did. Not sure what that says and I guess I will never know.
Another thing, second is not the largest gear on the cluster, first is. However second tends to wear more because you it gets almost as much use as first, but first generally is used when the engine is idling and the gear is moving much slower. Second however has to deal with 2000 odd rpm when being shifted into.
As I said these are just observations from some one who has no idea.
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