"weak" reverse gear

[dumpstafresh]

i called someone about an svx that there selling. and he told me that the reverse gear was "weak".

i think he ment it was slipping while in reverse. he said that the reverse gear worked fine on flat ground. but if he tried to back up a hill it wouldnt go(or would slip).

could this be low diff. or trans. fluid by chance. Maby something i can check and be a quick fix.
or do you think its more serious. and if so what do you think it is? how much to fix? could an amatuer fix it? etc. etc.

oh yah it has a 1994 Legacy SS Turbo EJ22T 3.90 Tranny/Rear end swap (Installed by F.A.T.). if that makes a difference.

this is actually a users old car. JapCarRealGood is his user name. he sold it to the guy thats selling it now less than 1000 miles ago.

i talked to him on the phone and he said that it wasnt messed up when he sold it. current owner said the same.

any advice would be much apreciated. you guys are always a good help. hopefully after i find a place with a garage to work on my car in. and learn about it i can be helping other newbies. and the cycle will continue.

[JaySVX]

With time, an amateur can fix anything. All you have to do is keep taking things off until you find what your looking for. If I were you, and you have a spare car to drive for the time being, I'd put the thing on jack stands, and take off the the transmission and crack it open, see if you can find what's going on. If you can't figure it out, take pictures and put them up here and folks will have a jab at it.

Note: The following is pure speculation, based on no actual knowledge, talking completely out of my ass, and the results could widely range from being dead on to not being able to be further from the actual solution.

In the forward gears you have a high speed clutch and a low speed clutch, and them going can cause slipping in their respected gears. So one might assume that there would be a reverse clutch as well, which , if bad, would cause slipping when in reverse. Like a clutch in a manual trans, if a clutch is not under heavy load, it can still function. However, under load, it's slipping is going to increase, and functionality decrease, thus making heavy acceleration with a bad clutch similar to going up hill backwards in reverse.