trouble getting reverse gear in S1

[bathbeckham]

I struggle to engage reverse gear in my 1998 S S1 especially when the engine is warm. This is well embarassing when i hold up the whole world trying to find reverse to get in that parking space!

Anyone else got the same problem. Anyone know of a cure!!!

[fergusd]

Sounds like either, your clutch is getting tired, the clutch hydraulic system needs bled, you have the cr@p red plastic clutch hose, your clutch slave cylinder mounting bracket is bent/fatigued . . .

Bleeding the clutch is not too difficult with a pressure bleeder, changing the hose is about a 3 hour job, get the hose from someone like www.lotusecosse.com . . .

Need the milage of the car to be more precise . . .

Presume you have no trouble getting 5th ?

Fd

>> Edited by fergusd on Saturday 27th September 18:25

[northernboy]

I'd say it's very likely to be the well known "red hose" problem, caused when the plastic clutch line expands, rather than putting all the movement of the pedal into moving the clutch.

You can disconnect the red hose, and fit a braided one instead, which shoudl fix it, but another alternative is simply to bleed the fluid through with fresh stuff. Now that the weather's cooling down, this might well be good enough to fix it until spring.

When I had a big trip with this problem, I made do by turning the engine off, then putting it into reverse, then starting it up again, and reversing (before turning the engine off again when I wanted to go forwards.

Not ideal, I know, but a decent workaround in an emergency

[TheLemming]

You can also try putting in neutral, selecting another forward gear, then reverse. Sometimes helps - or at least makes less of an unhealthy noise...

As mentioned above, sounds like "red clutch hose" syndrome

Its relatively easy to fix. Simply change the clutch hose for a braided one, took us about an hour with 2 people.

Could be done in a lot less by someone who knows what they are doing