pinion angle

if it was a bad syncro, wouldn't it b hard to up shift as well?

Not necessarily.Lots of truckers dont ever use a clutch to upshift.They have driven their trucks so long they know when engine rpm matches tranny rpm and shift without the clutch.Different story downshifting as u have ur foot off the gas and engine speed rarely matches tranny speed.BJ

u can shift both ways without the clutch.

its easier up though

I used to do that in the Geo Metro we had at work. It got dubbed the lunch run car. Once you got it going in first you could just slam the shifter through the rest of the gears if you tried hard enough.

to downshift without clutch you just have to tap the gas in neutral and then apply slight pressure towards what gear you want and when the rpms match it will take smoothly

you can have one side of the synchro worn down and that'll only make it hard to go into that gear. the other side might still be good. or that might not even be the problem at all.

I'm going to try and replace the slave cylinder, and the clutch resevoir