M/T - Difficulty Shifting Into Reverse Gear

90ford25 TRANSMISSION - MANUAL - REVERSE GEAR ENGAGEMENT PROCEDURE TAG - REMOVAL INSTRUCTIONS
Article No. 90-17-5
FORD: 1990 ESCORT, MUSTANG, TAURUS, TEMPO

LINCOLN-MERCURY: 1990 TOPAZ
ISSUE: Owners may express concerns of having difficulty shifting the manual transmissions into reverse gear. Usually, this is because they are not familiar with the reverse gear engagement procedure.

Figure 1:

ACTION: DO NOT remove the manual transmission reverse gear engagement procedure. Be sure that the owner is completely familiar with the following manual transmission reverse gear engagement procedure.


A manual transmission reverse gear engagement procedure tag, Figure 1, is attached to the shift knob before leaving the assembly plants. In some cases, these instruction tags are being removed prior to the owners taking delivery of the car. Consequently, they are not aware of how to properly shift into reverse gear and experience some difficulty.

Difficulty of shifting into reverse gear is usually caused by:

^ SPIN TIME: The driver is shifting into reverse gear before the internal transmission gears have stopped spinning. This results in a grinding noise.

^ BLOCK OUT: The driver is experiencing a complete block out condition caused by the reverse gear teeth lined up point to point making them unable to slide past each other.
MANUAL TRANSMISSION REVERSE GEAR ENGAGEMENT PROCEDURE

1. Completely stop the car.

2. Depress the clutch pedal to the floor and place the gearshift lever in the NEUTRAL position. Do not release the clutch pedal.

CAUTION: IF THE FOLLOWING STEP IS NOT FOLLOWED, A GRINDING NOISE MAY OCCUR.

3. Wait a minimum of 3 seconds before attempting to shift into reverse gear.

4. Push the gearshift lever completely to the right and then pull rearward on the gearshift lever to engage REVERSE GEAR.

5. If REVERSE GEAR is engaged, slowly release the clutch pedal from the floor.

6. If the REVERSE GEAR is not engaged, do not release the clutch pedal from the floor. Place the gearshift lever back in NEUTRAL and then momentarily release the clutch pedal from the floor.

7. Repeat steps (2) through (5).

OTHER APPLICABLE ARTICLES: none
WARRANTY STATUS: INFORMATION ONLY
OASIS CODES: 505000, 505200, 597997