P1800ES - reverse gear
 

Is anyone able to offer some advice as for some reason I am no longer able to engage reverse gear. It’s a 4 speed box with overdrive. All other gears engage fine. The location of reverse is left and up, to the left of 1st.

Any help would be gratefully received.

I think you need to add some details.

Are you physically unable to put it in reverse, or do you mean its crunching the gears when you try to?

Have you tried to put it in reverse with the engine switched off and then turn the engine on with the clutch depressed. If so does that work?

Yes I mean physically unable to get it into reverse, not tried with engine off though, will give that a try tomorrow and report back. When I have tried to get it in reverse, it doesn’t crunch gears at all, I just am unable to move the stick into the correct position.

Sounds like the lockout bracket which you must lift the gear knob up to clear that bracket and then top left location of movement whilst trying to select reverse gear is your issue 😎👍

Has this issue been resolved?

I can't speak to the ES; but, on the 140 neither the long or the later rear set short shifter had a reverse lockout mechanism. I also do not recall a lockout on the 1971 1800E. If the ES has a manually operated gate reverse lockout then that would be the first place to look.

On the M40 / M41 in the 140 there is an interlock plate on the underside of the top cover. Associated with this there is a spring loaded plunger. That plunger is what you 'push against' when you give the lever that shove to the left and then forward to get into reverse. If the lever is blocking you from 'shoving to the left' to get into reverse chances are that the plunger may be jammed which is preventing it from being pushed in to allow access to reverse. Or the interlock plate has somehow been damaged (how that would happen in a way that only affects reverse is unclear). Unfortunately it is a 'drop the box to inspect'.

Full disclosure it has been 13+ years since I had the box on my 142 apart so my memory may be in exact. Heads up, the Volvo green books are rather useless when it comes to details assisting with diagnosis of the selector mechanism problems.

I had a similar problem when I bought my 1800S. The previous owner had bad work done on the gearbox. This had involved someone having cut right through the tunnel to gain access. They had incorrectly tried to make the gear shift try to be able to select reverse without using the linkage selector plate, that holds the shift up.
When I bought the car I knew this was an issue that needed full attention, as it was only with great difficulty that reverse could be found, occasionally!
Also the overdrive had been 'worked on' and was incorrectly not switching out when selecting third.
I am a bit hazy on the subject as this was more than eleven years ago.

Can you move the shift lever move to the reverse position (and the gear just doesn't engage)? Or can you not even move the lever to where reverse "used" to be. All forward gears are ok?
( I just rebuilt one of these gearboxes (M41) in August, so I kinda know how it works from the inside and there's only so much that can go wrong....)

Thank you to all that have posted their insights and suggestions. I would like to apologise for the delay in my responses. None of your suggestions have fallen on deaf ears. Just with the Christmas break and long standing bad weather, I have put off going back to working on the car until drier conditions.

Having said that I can confirm that the lever just doesn’t physically move across left and up into the reverse position, gears 1-4 do work fine with no bother at all. So from what a few have said it does sound like the lock out lever or something along those lines. When I get back to it I will come back to say what it was.

Can you confirm that you can actually lift the gear lever? Your remote is different to the earlier type where the tube at the bottom of the lever has to actually lift higher than the lock out late to go sideways enough to be able select reverse. Pic attached of the system. The cap might have become unscrewed. It might be cross threaded. The spring might be broken. Lever can be removed in the car to check.