redline7500

I got in my car the other day and went to put it in reverse to back out of my drive way and it wouldn't go in reverse. I haven't had any trouble with it before. Have any of you guys had this problem? any suggestions on what it could be? Thanks for any info!

AndyD

iTrader: (1)

Hey man, try this.

Hope this helps.
You might need to setup an account on that site to view it though.

http://www.superhonda.com/foru...24208

redline7500

hey dude....thanks so much for your help. I went to that site and read that article and went outside to try it...and after a couple of attempts, if finally started to slide in reverse. I"m gonna play with it some more tomorrow and hopefully it will be back to normal. Thanks for you help!!!

DR

Your 4th to 5th synchro is mushroomed out which makes the shift fork bind when trying to shift into reverse. Your tranny might work for a little while longer but pretty soon you will lose reverse for good.

EK22Tim

How do you fix this little problem?? Get a new Synchro? This is what's happening to my H22??

BlackPrelude93

new tranny probley

DR

You just need to replace your 4th to 5th synchro set which in parts will cost you a little over $100. This has happened to my car twice now and I know a few others it has happened to as well.

sporadiccepheid

eek. it would SUCK not being able to go in reverse.

rjr162

OT a little, but my friend has an 89 RX-7, went to back out of a spot to get to tech at the last SCCA event, and his tranny is stuck. he can hit 1st, 2nd, and neutral between those two only. He can't move the shifter to the right at all... and when the car is in neutral it backs up, when it's in 1st it bogs down like it's going to move but goes no where (I don't think he let the clutch out the whole way or he might stall... can't remember though) and the same thing happens in 2nd. We're thinking the tranny is stuck in reverse and when it's in 1st or 2nd, those gears enguage too and bind everything up. Anyone ever hear of this before?

LJR-LUDE01

If your car still under warranty honda will fix it. I had the same problem, took it back to dealer and they fixed it for free. At first they try to give me some BS about having coilovers so it would cancel my warranty after a few calls they got their s&*& together and change their mind.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by sporadiccepheid &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">eek. it would SUCK not being able to go in reverse. </TD></TR></TABLE>

hahahah yes it does..... I had to drive my car a few day with out reverse and it was painfull to go somewhere and you have to push your damn car back.

PoweredByPrelude

This has happend to me twice also. The bearings had begun to wear and were sagging. 5th & reverse shift hub wore together and would not slide all the way through...sorry im not good at explaining this. Anyway all and all parts for mine was like 400-500ish. Luckily my dad is a tech at chrysler and a tranny tech nowadays, so he repaired it. Labor on this will NOT be cheap. To the guy who said like 100 bucks in parts did you replace the bearings? BTW despite what many think this has absolutly nothing to do with syncro's. Syncro's speed up and slow down the gear(its the gear right) between shifts for a smoother shift. So reverse doesn't even have a sycro i don't believe.

DR

Reverse does not have a synchro but to get to reverse you have to slide over the 4 to 5th synchro. So if that synchro is mushroomed out you will not be able to slide over it and you will not be able to engage reverse. Here is a better explanation from Todd Marcucci that he wrote on preludeonline explaining this with pictures of my car's tranny.



All,

This pertains mostly to the 5th gen, since so many people have them, but I suspect the 4th gen is susceptible to this problem, though I haven't heard of many complaints.

The absolute most common problem with the 5-speed has got to be the 5th gear grind. It would also seem that as this problem gets worse, reverse eventually becomes difficult to engage (especially when hot) and eventually goes out completely. I know several people this has happened to, me being one of them.

I know now why this occurs; after lengthy analysis while repairing a '98SH 5 speed tranny, the problem is obvious.

Here are the parts:

http://www.ntpog.org/articles/...6.jpg

And here's reverse:

http://www.ntpog.org/articles/...7.jpg

Here's a closeup of the 5th/reverse fork interaction (in neutral):

http://www.ntpog.org/articles/...1.jpg

Here's how it works. Note that the 5th gear shift fork moves down to go into 5th, but has to move up in order to actuate the reverse shift fork (though it doesn't do anything with 5th gear):

http://www.ntpog.org/articles/...2.jpg

Here it is in 5th:

http://www.ntpog.org/articles/...3.jpg

http://www.ntpog.org/articles/...4.jpg

And finally, in reverse:

http://www.ntpog.org/articles/...5.jpg

http://www.ntpog.org/articles/...6.jpg

Now, what does this mean? Well, as you munch 5th gear, the synchro sleeve takes a beating. As you may notice it slides over the hub to engage with the 5th gear mating teeth and lock it on the mainshaft. OK, but the sleeve doesn't mate to anything in reverse. Well, it has to move up off of the hub in reverse, though- which can't happen if the teeth have mushroomed out such that the sleeve binds on the hub:

http://www.ntpog.org/articles/...8.jpg

http://www.ntpog.org/articles/...9.jpg

This is what happens. It's all that happens. If you happen to get reverse engaged halfway and you grind, QUIT! Grinding reverse will damage the reverse gear on the countershaft and damage the mainshaft itself (reverse is machined directly into it). What happens is that the idler gear doesn't drop down all the way, and all the reverse gears just grind. You can also widen the "pinch" of the reverse shift fork on the idler gear, which will mandate replacement of the shift fork.

What's the fix? If reverse quits and everything else is OK but grinding in 5th (or you *just* have grinding in 5th), you can just replace the reverse synchro pack. This is pretty easy as it doesn't require mainshaft/countershaft removal, just removal of the reverse fork and you can "work" it off (moving the 5th gear shift fork out of the way).

I thought this would be handy for some of you, if not for repair, then for peace of mind. I know I'm glad to finally know WTF was going on inside of the gearbox. @#$%! Honda and their brittle transmissions.

EK22Tim

Hmm, looks like I'll be doing THIS next week! bummer. Theoretically, can't I just take that gear out (syncro in the last pic) and clean up the bunged teeth? With a small dremel bit or something? Won't this work? I've done that before for CV 1/2shafts when installing, the teeth needed to be cleaned up.. just touched them up with a dremel.

DR

I woundn't spend all that time pulling and reinstalling the tranny just to band-aid the problem. Just go buy the 4th to 5th synchro for $100 and do it right.

Honda318dx

Happened to my car too..

alphajesse

This happened to my car @ 21k miles. Honda gave me a new tranny under warranty. The 5th/reverse shift fork was bent. There was a TSB on that shift fork for being "mismanufactured" on 97-99 ludes, I think. My car was an 01.

EK22Tim

Hmm, that's interesting. I have a 95 engine/tranny..

Jonathan_ED3

Wow this problem is more common than I thought.

Is it a matter or WHEN it's going to happen, or IF it's going to happen?

I'm really gentle shifting gears, especially 5th because I've read about this before.

So it's pretty much just a matter of time?

EK22Tim

Well, I got my synchro pack on order. Should be here in a week, so I'll be doing this next weekend. I'll see if I can get a camera and take a ton of pics for you guys, who are interested.