SInce about the start of the year I have noticed going into Reverse at times will not work. Most of the time, still now its once, but about 3 or 4 times a month it will take a good 5 times. Is it just normal or could the gears just be going bad.

 

Try this; push in clutch, move lever to first gear THEN to reverse, release clutch.

 

Yup... happened to me a lot, I did what Kent said... I usually either went into third to fouth then into reverse...

Sometimes, I just had to press the clutch, release, then press it again until it cleared easily to go into reverse.

You can put up with it for quite some time. I did for over a year. Most tranmissions don't really like reverse in any case.

You could but a clutch rebuild kit... they are reasonably cheap and should help

 

Someone once posted a reason that you have to do this, but I always put it in fourth before reverse.

Someone said third was better because it synch'd up the gears or something but I find fourth works.

If I put it in reverse, let go the clutch and find nothing, I clutch back in, wait for it to fall back to idle, PUSH the shifter further into reverse (it 'clicks' into place) then I'm good to go.

Jon

 

I was told years ago that Japanese transmissions do not have synchros on reverse, so you should always put it in 1st, then reverse to synchronize the gears. I've always done it this way, regardless of whether or not I had any issues doing it the other way.

 

Why would ANY car have synchro in reverse?

There's nothing wrong with your gearbox. The reverse is an idler introduced between two gears from the side to reverse geartrain direction. It's a small pinion. If the pinion doesn't engage immediately it's just because the teeth happen to be meeting headon. Just let the clutch out in neutral to change the orientation and try again.

B

 

I'm sensing some sort of "Italian Tank transmission" joke in here somewhere... something about 1 gear forward, three in reverse? Sorry, it's early - I need coffee

 

I had to do the same thing on mine. The Jeep I had was the same way too. Reverse is generally not synchronized on older transmissions. If you let the clutch out when the tranny is in neutral, then put the cluch in and imediately try to put the tranny in reverse, it will most likely grind, indicating a non-synchronized reverse gear. On some even older transmission, even 1st isn't synchronized.