Help - Accidentally shift to rear gear

[Poster]

Got a 03 Forester. Car works great. Already had 120k. Anyway last week I got
something in my mind and was driving in the rain. I was driving at 80km/h
and saw a red light few blocks from down the road. I accidentally shifted
down to rear gear instead of 4th. I heard grinding noise when releasing the
clutch. So I quickly disengaged it again.

My question is whether I'd already done something bad to my car or not. It's
still runing OK right now.

Thanks.

 

[MN]

Got a 03 Forester. Car works great. Already had 120k. Anyway last week I
got something in my mind and was driving in the rain. I was driving at
80km/h and saw a red light few blocks from down the road. I accidentally
shifted down to rear gear instead of 4th. I heard grinding noise when
releasing the clutch. So I quickly disengaged it again.

I think this should not be possible i.e. you should not be able,
at all, to shift into rear gear while moving forward.

Don't Subaru manual transmissions have a synchro lock of
some sorts preventing this from ever occuring? I suspect you
probably never fully shifted, because it should be impossible
to do (is it???), and therefore suffered no serious damage.

I am not a mechanic though and maybe totally wrong.
Lets hope someone in the know illuminates this interesting
issue.

MN

 

[mark jb]

Got a 03 Forester. Car works great. Already had 120k. Anyway last week I

got something in my mind and was driving in the rain. I was driving at
80km/h and saw a red light few blocks from down the road. I accidentally
shifted down to rear gear instead of 4th. I heard grinding noise when
releasing the clutch. So I quickly disengaged it again.

My question is whether I'd already done something bad to my car or not.
It's still runing OK right now.

You would have ground the rear synchro down a bit.
Ever noticed how when people change into reverse while still moving forward,
it crunches the shit out of the gearbox? Basically that, but you were going
much faster.
As long as you haven't done too much damage, it shouldn't be a problem. If
it's fucked, it'll be harder than a 20 year old courier's car to get into
reverse.

It should never have gone *IN* to gear in the first place. It's possible you
had it halfway into 4th and that's where the noise came from when
disengaging the clutch. Tends to be the most common cause of grinding on my
Forester, if I don't get it quite into gear and then drop the clutch.

-mark

 

[Danny Russell]

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 11:27:25 +1000, "mark jb" <nukeleer at internode dot on dot net> wrote:

SNIP

Ever noticed how when people change into reverse while still moving forward,
it crunches the shit out of the gearbox? Basically that, but you were going
much faster.

SNIP

Reverse isn't synchronized. That's why it grinds.

It's possible to shift into any forward gear while rolling backwards because all forward gears are
synchronized.