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shifter is shitty
4 of 50 - December 11th, 2003 at 08:41 PM

All my gears seem to be difficult to engage. Reverse is the worst and grinds loud enough to get everyones attention. The shifter feels clunky up forward at all times but I can stop the grind if I really step on the clutch hard (to the floor). I have read that this problem is most likely the nylon bush at the shifter end. What do you reakon?

MickH - December 11th, 2003 at 08:45 PM

Wot kind of VW????:jesus If Kombi could be the nylon bush. Try coupling also (at end of rod towards the motor) for beetle and Kombi

vw54 - December 11th, 2003 at 09:39 PM

Couple of things to check.

1 condition of engine and gearbox rubber mounts

2 adjustment of clutch and cable pre tension

3 gear shift rod universal joint.

4 gear shift rod bush

5 adjustment and position of gear stick selector plate

If all of these are good or adjusted correctly then yr gear box is on its way out or buggared already.

tonyg - December 12th, 2003 at 05:38 AM

adjust clutch first

4 of 50 - December 12th, 2003 at 06:10 PM

sorry, I have a '77 bus. Thanks for the list

4 of 50 - December 15th, 2003 at 09:12 PM

After a fair bit of stuffin' around under my beast I came back to the start and realised that the plate at the bottom of the shifter was loose. Thats shitty but I wouldnt do it any other way. Thanks

4 of 50 - January 11th, 2004 at 04:07 PM

in the end it was the clutch adjustment.

However..... I had a few memorable hours under my bus trying to work out how the whole thing worked.

There is not much help on this from the usually great J. Muir book/bible. A few pics of the shifter assembly would make this issue very simple.

As it is I am not sure which way around the shifter base plate goes.

ANYONE?

4 of 50 - January 11th, 2004 at 04:10 PM

I just realised that I have posted two solutions for the same problem. Which one is true. They both are! The clutch adjustment made a bigger difference than the base plate adjustment though:D

kombidaze - January 12th, 2004 at 11:46 AM

your clutch cable could be on the way out.
did this shifting problem happen suddenly, like one minute it was ok and then not. If that is the case some of the cable strands have broken, when it happened to me I heard a definite snapping noise, I replaced the cable ASAP turned out I had one strand left to break. REPLACE THE CABLE if this is the case.

4 of 50 - January 14th, 2004 at 04:12 PM

No, but once i did hear a series of metalic clunkings coming from underneath the bus while on a test drive. It turned out to be a few hitchhicking tools.

I will replace the clutch cable though now you mention that there is a precedence for unusual stretching of the same