Engine Dies when shifted into reverse

Change the starter inhibitor switch. It allows the car to start when in Park or Neutral. There is possibly a relay attached to the switch to keep the engine running when moving lever through all gear selections.

Cheers, Peter.

I'm curious, where's "Park" on a manual transmission?

:-)

Gary

It only dies when you are going to reverse, no other time. Also when it does this the reverse or backup lights are not on, if they are on it will run.

I suspect that you've got an intermittent short somewhere in the reverse light circuit (which is switched by a switch on the gear selector) and that this is somehow killing the ignition. You need to take a careful look at the wiring.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the reverse light switch is somehow connecting the live feed to earth rather than to the reverse lights. It's probably doing it through a high enough resistance not to blow any fuses - but is reducing the ignition voltage sufficiently to stall the engine.

Bonnet Lock

I might stand corrected, but isn't the reverse light switch on the side the gear box, near the top somewhere, almost impossible to get at, unless you lower the rear of the gearbox, many apologies if by 'selector' you were referring to the entire selector mechanism. The OP's problem had me stumped at first so I left it until now, but what you suggest is very feasable, even more so given the 240's habit of developing high resistance fuse connections. So on the drain side of the relevant fuse, perhaps there intermittently isn't quite enough current squeezing through the fuseholder to illuminate the backup lamps, run the ignition ......, so it quits.

Just my 2 pennies worth

Ken Phillips

The starter inhibitor switch also selects the reverse (back-up) lights so change the starter inhibitor switch, like I said.

Cheers, Peter.

But there *isn't* a starter inhibitor switch on a manual transmission, which the original poster stated he has.

This is off-topic, but are you Twa from Knox College, early 1970's? Bruce Pick

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twa wrote:

I don't think he *explicitly* said it was manual - but he did say that it was 4-speed with overdrive - so I assumed it to be manual, in which case - as you say - there *ain't* a starter inhibitor switch.

Yes, I was indeed using the term "gear selector" in a general sense. I am not familiar with this particular setup, but somewhere there will be a switch which is activated when reverse is selected - and this may be achieved in any of several ways.

It is highly likely that some of the wiring associated with this switch - wherever it is - is getting partially shorted to earth when reverse is selected.

No, that's not me. Sorry!