Just as the title states, for some reason my truck hates going into reverse. Typically it will work the first time of the day, but after that its half and half. Whenever I put the shift lever into reverse, nothing happens. You can tap the accelerator and it will SLAM into reverse but it sounds like the transmission just fell out. You can also put it in drive, then go back to reverse and it will work like normal. I have checked the fluid level and it is fine, the fluid looks nice and red, not burnt. The trans still shifts fine and doesn't slip. Does anyone have any idea what would cause this? The truck only has 56,000 miles and I am assuming it still has the original tranny fluid from the factory unless the PO changed it. I thought I would flush it and see what happens, but I don't want to spend $200+ on tranny fluid only to have it continue to do it. Any suggestions or tricks to try before dropping $200 on a tranny flush?
Thanks,
Kevin

 

Sounds like you may need to adjust your shifter down on the transmission. It could be off just a little bit and causing the problem.

 

You also may have a problem in your valve body. My truck did the exact same thing. I replaced the valve body with a John Wood valve body from Riffraff, and it has completely cured it. Not to mention it shifts like a whole new truck.

 

I can't see how a valve body could affect the shift to reverse, but I've been wrong before.
I think you have a seal in the reverse clutch that is wearing out. If I'm right this problem is going to keep getting worse until you won't be able to get reverse at all.

 

I thought the same thing Mark. All I know, is that my truck exhibited the exact same behavior as the OP, and as soon as I swapped VB's the problem went away. Don't know if there was something stuck in the reverse circuit of the stock VB or what...I just know I don't have the problem anymore.

 

Something like this would make the most sense to me, but seeing as the tranny only has 56,000 miles on it I had kinda ruled that out.

I have been looking for an excuse to try a JW valve body. I guess this would be a good one. Did yours do it all the time or was it intermittent? I drove all over town this morning and it only did it once.

 

My truck seemed to never do it first thing in the morning, but it would get worse when the truck was warm. Once warm, it wasn't consistent. Sometimes it would go into reverse like normal, other times it was a bit delayed, and then sometimes you could put it in reverse and it would sit there doing nothing until you gave it a bit of gas and it would slam into gear. Once in gear, it would never slip (even while backing trailer uphill). I know replacing the VB doesn't make a ton of sense, but it has not done it once since I swapped VB and fluid, where beforehand, it would do it pretty much daily. And yes, this is a GREAT excuse to upgrade to the JW VB...you will not be disappointed.

 

That is exactly what mine does! Did you flush all the fluid at the same time or just replace what was in the pan?

 

I drained the pan once before I did the VB, so my tranny has had about 16 qts of new fluid put in it over about a month's time. I did not do the "pull the cooler line and flush" procedure.

 

By the way, my truck had just over 200k miles on it when I bought it and did this work.

 

Hmm I guess I'll save up the money and try out a JW valve body. Speaking of transmission flushes, where does everyone buy 20 quarts of transmission fluid? A five gallon bucket would be the way to go if I could find it as opposed to trying to find 20 individual quarts.

 

I just bought a couple 12-qt boxes at the local parts store.