2002 AMF TDI Reverse Gear engagement

[steveb]

Management is having great difficulty engaging reverse gear, all the others are fine, it's no easier to get in if you switch the engine off, i'm a 100 miles away till late Saturday any suggestions ? linkage adjustment required ?

 

[timmus]

Linkage adjustment has to be the place to start.

There's no synchro on reverse gear; it is the only gear inside the TDI's gearbox where the movement of the gear stick actually physically meshes cogs together. Sometimes the cogs come up against each other tooth-to-tooth rather than tooth-to-trough. If the engine is running but reverse gear won't engage, you sometimes need to lift the clutch gently in order to just nudge the cogs into the tooth-to-trough position.

Cheers,

Tom

 

[spike]

Many years ago I read the plunger in the reverse light switch (mounted in the gear change 'tower') can stick and make reverse gear selection tricky.
I don't recall any member reporting this as a 'fix' but it's free to check simply by unscrewing the sensor and checking for any improvement in reverse selection

Cheers Spike

 

[steveb]

thanks guys hopefully she will get by till saturday evening it's only become a problem this last week.

 

[timmus]

thanks guys hopefully she will get by till saturday evening it's only become a problem this last week.

The sudden onset of this problem suggests that a linkage alignment is certainly the next thing to try. If it doesn't help, it could be that the shift tower bearings are on their way out, meaning that the shift tower is able to wobble back and forth a bit. This is a relatively cheap thing to renew (the gearbox stays in the car and the work is done from above), but I'd be inclined to hand it to Marcus at WOM Automotive as he's done the job countless times before. You'll love the way the gearbox feels with new shift bearings.

Cheers,

Tom