Difficult to get the gear in reverse. Manual transmission on Xantia.

[NorwegianMan]

Often I do not get to put the gear lever directly in reverse, but then it helps to put the gear lever in another gear, and then back to reverse. So what could it be.

[xf1ref]

It's like the lever go into reverse but the gear is not engaged? Could be the worn linkages from the lever..or sometime this his how is working because the reverse gear doesn't have a syncro. If the gear is not engaged, put the lever in neutral, depress and press again the clutch and then back to reverse.

[white exec]

Not unusual to have to do this on a BE3/5 manual box.
If all other gears engage and change properly, I'd not suspect a fault.
Explanation above is correct: no synchromesh on Reverse.

Might be worth checking the gearbox oil level.
Oil should be 75W/80 GL-4 gear oil (not GL-5, or 4/5), something like Total Traxium 8 or Transmission 8.

[NorwegianMan]

xf1ref, I can barely feel when I have not got the gear lever properly back in reverse, but often I am not sure, and when I then give gas, the car is neutral. This happens almost every other time I have to put the gear in reverse, and it's not a big problem for me, because I just put the gear lever in another gear, and then back to reverse, and then it's okay. But the problem may arise if I have the car in a workshop, and the mechanic then can not back out the car, but car mechanics are mostly familiar with this type of problem?

white exec, I have just changed the gear oil to the right type of oil, but there is then no change in the problem.