A Question about the Automatic Transmission

[tennesseetoyota]

Hello again all!

So I was recently riding along in my van (1987 2WD, automatic transmission) with my brother. Unwisely, I let him drive the van to the store. On the way back home, we were traveling along at a good 35 MPH and, him being used to a manual car, tried downshifting the van by pushing the shift lever FORWARD INTO REVERSE :O

Fortunately, in the brief instant in which the van was in reverse while we were traveling forward, nothing really happened except the tires locked up (no weird transmission noise or anything of that ilk) for a second before he quickly shifted it back down into neutral from reverse. We continued home another 5 miles or so with no issues apparent.

So my question is this: is there some sort of safety mechanism in this van that would prevent damage to the transmission in cases like these where the driver accidentally shifts into reverse while traveling forward? Or is the transmission just incredibly strong? Or did I just get lucky for the time being and my transmission now faces its impending doom?

I am baffled by this (and still a little shaky from the adrenaline shot from the incident), and am hoping this is not the death of my van.

[tennesseetoyota]

I managed to find this part, which is a "reverse restrict" pin. I would imagine this would imply that there is some sort of safety mechanism (the "reverse restrict") then. Am I correct on this? Or does the reverse restrict do something else altogether?

[originalkwyjibo]

The page you linked to shows an exploded diagram of a manual transmission shift assembly so it would not apply. That pin is to keep you from unintentionally shifting to reverse while downshifting from 5th to 4th. On most manuals reverse can only be engaged from a resting neutral position. As far as damage, if no problems are evident don't sweat it. I used to do "rockfords" and neutral drops in a couple of my cars in my younger more foolish days and rear ends and driveshafts were of more concern than the transmissions.