"Sloppy to impossible gear change" or "How I overhauled the gear linkage"

Its been some time since I did anything to my van, but I was too busy. Hopefully now I am back.

The first and out most important thing to short out is the sloppy gear change, especially changing to first gear. There could only be one solution: complete overhaul of the gear linkage! Clean it, change the bushes, re-grease, and readjust.

It is not a hard job really, and it does not take too much time, although I did it over few weekends because of lack of time.

This is me and the van floating in the air!

First thing first is to mark the join between the front part of the gear linkage and the back so you can put it back in the same position and then maybe readjust if needed.

notice the red line marking the position of the join

From that point on is just dropping everything.

don't mine the prop-shaft, you don't need to take it out

Next step, is to clean everything and replace the bushes with new ones.

new goodies from VW and clean used ones

it is like a puzzle for kids to put all back together

everything back on

So at the end just bold back on everything. First gear is like butter now, second is a bit hard to find, just a bit, but I think with some play with the adjustment it will come to its correct position.