so i'm on my way to work and need gas. so i pull in to the gas station and when i go to back up i find that the car won't go into reverse. this happend to me once before at an auto-x but it remadied (sp?) itself by the end of the day. it also did it earlier today but it cleared up. any suggestions/ideas on what it is? i'm thinking/hoping its either linkage, linkage bushings, or tranny bushings. i'm hoping its not the tranny.
the car is a 91 civic hatch w/ a d15 and the 4speed

 

flush the transmission.

 

flush like new fluid or like get a new one?

 

go to checker
buy a flush kit
flush the transmission fluid ala the instructions
replace with honda MTF
if that dosent fix it look into a physical problem, i.e. shift linkage

 

ok. flushed the tranny (old fluid was super shot, but not burnt) and put fresh fluid. the shifting feels smoother but i'm still having trouble with the reverse gate. i took a look at the linkage while i was under there and it looks like it may have scraped on something, but i dunno if its bent(prolly is) bushings look "ok" but they have 140,000+ on them. is there anything specific that i look for in the linkage/bushings? has anyone else had this problem?

 

adjust the clutch cable

 

Well, it so happened that I lost reverse on my car at 26K miles when the 5th gear shift fork broke off and jammed the reverse gearing...

 

and how badly did you abuse 5th gear to break it OFF!?!?!?!?!

 

It was actually a defect supposedly, covered under warranty. Honda trannies are poorly built in my opinion. They will handle your everyday driving, but that's about it. My car has 87K, and the tranny rebuilt 60K ago, and all some of the synchros have crapped out. 1st to 2nd when shifting hard, but 5th gear all the time. There was NO transition period for the synchro to fail, it just stopped serving its function. Hopefully fresh tranny oil will help...