OK, so here's the deal, i have an 04 LX, i bought the car 3 years ago, when i bought the car i would have a tough time getting into reverse, it would take shifting through the gears once or twice to get it in to reverse, i asked the dealer and they insisted that it was normal, me being naive and this being the first manual i have owned in a while, believed them and took the car home...

over the 3 years this has gotten progressively worse, taking more and more time and effort to catch reverse.

fast forward to this week, reverse is nearly non existent, it takes me 10-15 tries to hit reverse, and when i do probably 4 out of 5 times, it pops out as soon as i apply any throttle...

So, anybody know what's wrong and what it's gonna cost me to fix?? am i better off to just to a K swap or h swap, or whatever? (i was trying to sell this car recently, but with the used car market recently, i am not sure that's going to be an option, and i certainly don't want to sell it with a bum tranny for half what i paid only 3 years ago)


the only things have have done thus far to try to correct the problem is, i put in new MTF, and a shirt shift adapter, neither of which have made nay difference.

 

You put a short shifter in, was it worse afterwards?

Try shifting from 1st gear to reverse. if not take the center console apart to make sure the shift console is damaged in anyway.
D-series trannys for these are getting cheaper and cheaper.

 

it wasn't worse, but also wasn't any better.

i looked in the shifter box and things looked fine, i wish it was that easy.

 

im no transmission expert, so ill advise you to check the shifting cables for tears, burns, bent etc.

if not all i can say is to replace the transmission.

 

they actually changed that when i first bought the car when i was having problems with my low end forward gears, it corrected them, but not reverse. since then i have not had a single issue with any forward gears.. only reverse.

 

there is a plastic two piece ball and socket set up at the base of the shifter, I have seen were you cant get reverse or fifth, spay some silicone spray down inside the ball and socket and have found thats fixed a lot of them, over time the plastic builds up a bit and jams it up...worth a try never seen any issues with those transmissions other than that ....and at the transmission the bushings seize up and can duplicate the same issue

 

thanks I'll give that a try, i have a few cans of spray silicone

 

I'll bet that this is the problem. Happenned on both of my em2's.

 

thanks for the suggestions, but no dice, didn't help any... i am wondering if maybe i went with it that way too long and it messed up the tranny.

 

It could possibly be your clutch. Mine was doing this and occasionally it wouldn't like to go into second. I replaced the clutch and haven't had a problem since.

 

if the 5spd civic tranny is like other hondas, it's not synchronized....to get it into reverse, clutch in, shift to first, then shift to reverse, clutch out. if it grinds into reverse, check if the clutch is dragging