Hard shifting into Reverse when motor turned off
Thread Starter
3rd Gear
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
Hard shifting into Reverse when motor turned off
This is my first post and I wasn't able to find a similiar issue. Just had the clutch/pressure plate etc replaced on my favorite wife's 2003 Vette. Now when the engine is turned off, it is extremely hard to move the shifter all the way to the right to put it into reverse. Before the replacement, you could always at least move the shifter all the way to the right. When the car is running, it shifts very smoothly into all of the gears. The repair shop guys have big arms and say that it is normal for it to be that hard to move the shifter to the right. Help.
Le Mans Master
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 6,993
Likes: 25
Mine is also harder than normal to find reverse sometimes. I think it might be reverse gears are not cut the same way so you have to be in just the right spot to get the teeth to mesh-my bike is the sameway-moving the car (or bike) slightly fixes the problem.
Melting Slicks
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 3,266
Likes: 8
From: Indian Rocks Beach FL
St. Jude Donor '08-'09-'10
First, don't let anyone tell you it's the reverse lockout solenoid. On the '01-'04 cars the solenoid is activated at forward speeds of 3 mph or greater and blocks reverse. On '97-'00 cars the solenoid is deactivated at speeds of 3 mph or greater and blocks reverse. So, on your car the solenoid will not block reverse with the power off.
On '97-'00 cars reverse is locked out with power off but the shifter should still move all the way to the right.
If your problem is that the shifter will not move far enough to the right to engage reverse the first thing I would look at is the alignment of the shifter. They had to remove the shifter to R&R the clutch and if they did not use an alignment pin when they reinstalled it they may have misaligned it.
On '97-'00 cars reverse is locked out with power off but the shifter should still move all the way to the right.
If your problem is that the shifter will not move far enough to the right to engage reverse the first thing I would look at is the alignment of the shifter. They had to remove the shifter to R&R the clutch and if they did not use an alignment pin when they reinstalled it they may have misaligned it.
Thread Starter
3rd Gear
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
Yes, the problem is that it will not move far enough to the right, sometimes. Sometimes it does move far enough to the right and then you can push it forward and engage reverse. Sometimes you need to use both hands to move it to the right. The person said that he did push the alignment pin in, to lock the shifter into position and then reinstalled it. The weird thing is that it shifts easily when the motor is running. Should I even worry about it?
