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Fri Feb 21, 2003 9:19 am

Occasionally when I downshift to second the tranny tries to go into reverse. What could be the problem? None of the shifter parts appear to be worn too badly.

Fri Feb 21, 2003 9:51 am

Bad shifter bushing,bad shifter coupler,or misadjusted shifter, locking plate on wrong under the shifter,or a combination of all of the above.Good luck.

Fri Feb 21, 2003 10:50 am

Have you done anything lately to the car that involved the gear shift? In which case start by looking at the shifter limit plate under the shifter housing. It's possible you might have put that plate on wrong. There are two raised lips on it. The longer raised lip has to go to the right. If it isn't to the right, you'll experience some weird shifting behavior like you describe.

Fri Feb 21, 2003 11:22 am

nope all those things have been replaced.

Fri Feb 21, 2003 1:25 pm

Try readjusting the shifter. Good luck

Fri Feb 21, 2003 2:10 pm

Not to beat a dead horse, and I'll shut up after this post, but if you replaced all those things you don't know if the plate is on correctly until you remove the shifter housing and look at it. I'll shut up now.

Fri Feb 21, 2003 2:59 pm

Good point.

Fri Feb 21, 2003 3:43 pm

It is relatively easy to try to go into reverse while downshifting into second. You sure that you are not doing that by mistake? You said sometimes, so I am willing that is it, if you say all parts are current and in good shape. Hope that helps.

Fri Feb 21, 2003 4:47 pm

The plate is correct. I've looked a couple of time just to triple check my work. Tried adjusting the housing everwhere. Even looked in the manual and it has an old TSB for it. Any other ideas?

Sun Feb 23, 2003 10:09 am

OK, this may qualify as a dumb question, so don't get po'd: how do you know it's going into reverse? Is it that you are getting grinding noises? Maybe it's not necessarily going into reverse, just having trouble going into second, which might be a different problem (I don't know anything about trannys, just trying to better define the problem).

Sun Feb 23, 2003 2:19 pm

one time i too had this problem.First everythang was ok then i took off my shifter to cleaned it up-re-installed it...BOOM wants to go into reverse when i would shift to second. I solved my problem by removing the shifter again and installing it slowly adjusting perfectly.
good luck