reverse gear cold start

The car does not have reverse synchros and the fluid is thick when cold.

Try this: With the vehicle fully stopped, fully depress the clutch pedal, shift to 2nd gear then immediately shift to reverse before letting the clutch pedal back out. The transmission should shift into reverse without grinding.

Hey! That's what I was going to say!

EVERY Toyota I have had with a 4 or 5-speed tranny has done this, right from my '74 1200, my '78 1200, my '80 Corolla, my '85 "86", '87 sedan, 95 Tercel. I have often wondered why they don't fix it, and then realized, I have NEVER had a problem with a Toyota 5-speed. Leave 'em alone!

You should shift into any of the forward gears to stop all motion inside the transmission, then shift into Reverse, or wait longer for the gears to coast to a top on their own.

I learned the trick on my '68 Mustang with a 3 speed, and it has worked on every other manual transmission car I have driven except for my old boss's MG Midget, which seemed to be difficult to shift in any gear.

No reverse synchos, and perfectly normal. Don't try to force it in. EIther wait a couple of seconds or use just a LITTLE pressure till the grinding noise stops, then it will just fall into place. Or stick it into a fwd gear, release the clutch a bit to spin the gears, and the reverse will be easier to select.

All manual transmissions have this issue, except those few vehicles that have synchro on reverse. Some model Landcruisers do (for rocking between

1st and reverse when stuck), and I seem to recall Aston-Martins too.

Reminds me of my first car, a 56 Morris Minor Traveller. The 4 speed trans did not have 1st synchro, so the trick was to pull the stick half way into

2nd (to spin the gears) and then snick it into 1st without the crunch. It was also great business for the trans rebuilders fixing 1st gear again and again. It wasn't till the early 60's that BMC cars had 1st synchros.

Stewart DIBBS

And, all recent Fords - yes *every* manual Focus - synchos for all gears . Just Honda and Toyota are stuck in the past on this. It's not like they don't charge enough to fix it and it's not like it doesn't need fixing. It's be nice to get rid of that gawd awful racket Hondas and Toyotas make while moving in reverse too.

That's not correct. When the gears are spinning because the trans is in N, all that is needed is to shift into any forward gear to stop them from spinning, then shift into R. Alternatively, one can depress the clutch and wait a few seconds, two or three should do the trick, and then shift into R

I argued for months once that there was no such thing as Reverse Synchros, until I discovered as a result of that arguing that my BMW has them. I grew up around cars, American cars mostly, and never heard of reverse synchros, and argued that it would be impossible to have such a thing. I was wrong. Don't ask me how they work because I can't explain how gears spinning in opposite directions can be synched.

I have a Jeep with a '65 Ford transmission that has no synchros on 1st gear, and the shift into any other gear is to stop the transmission from spinning, not start it spinning. You shifted into 2nd on your Minor, not to get the gears to spin but to make them stop spinning. You remembered right, but the reason was wrong.

These guys are getting confused between the reasons for stopping the gears so as to slip into reverse and "double clutching" to get low speed gears on trucks synchronized while moving up (or down) through the gears while accelerating or decelerating...this action (more or less) matches the gear speeds for the next shift...I had a couple of RX-7's where I could get moving in first then leave the clutch alone for the rest of the gear changes up through fifth and back down to first just by the engine sound...but then...I'm pretty wonderful doncha know.

:)

Sounds like the good 'ol days before synchros!