Reverse grinding, please confirm the cause Options

[malcolm2]

IIRC when reverse grinds, it is probably caused by the clutch cable, right?

Stretching a bit or the nuts loosened up? And of course the dreaded tube.... but lets not go there yet.

Have I remembered correctly?

[BillC]

If you press the clutch pedal and then quickly shift to reverse, you will normally get a grinding sound. As ejm said, the parts are still rotating at that point, and there's no synchronizer on reverse to slow them down.

A "trick" you can try is to shift to a forward gear first, to stop the rotation, and then shift into reverse. Or, you can press the clutch down and wait 5-10 seconds to shift into reverse (friction will slow the shafts, if you give them time).

If, however, you try the shift-into-forward-then-into-reverse trick or try waiting a bit before shifting into reverse and still get the grind, then your clutch may be dragging a little. A dragging clutch will keep the parts from slowing down.

The two most common causes of a dragging clutch on a 914 are loose/stretched clutch cable or a loose/broken clutch cable tube. A warped clutch disk is another cause, but not as likely as the previous two possibilities.