Ugh, what a frustrating day. It started off well enough, modified the clutch release fork to fit the car...and got that dialed, but from there, it all went downhill. I knew there was something binding up in the shifting, and figured it would be a relatively straight forward process for eliminating the issues. The weird part was I could get 1st, 3rd and 5th no problem, but reverse, 2nd and 4th were binding something fierce. I tried a stock VW shifter, my 'proto' short shifter and then made up a handle that I could attach right to the end of the transmission to use my hand. At one point, I was soooooo close...
But 20 minutes later, this was my garage:
yup, tore the transmission down a second time...and confirmed the problem:
We didn't actually measure how bad it was out, but after the first big pull to straighten it we measured it at 80 thou out. No wonder it was binding. Guess this gearbox was dropped at some point! Anyways, with that fixed and the transmission back together I spent the evening resetting the shift linkage, re-welding the bushing support in and confirming that it was all dialed. I'm was actually about 1/4" short with my shift rod, but that was easy enough to deal with since I was welding a bunch of the stuff in. Got it all done around 8pm, just in time for a late dinner. Just one last job, the shift rod bushing below the shifter.
Oh crap. Complete brainfart.
That bushing is replaceable with the stock setup, you simply pull out the shift rod, slide the bushing in and replace the shift rod. However, once you put a Z bend in the shift rod for a Porsche trans...no dice. That left me with a major dilemma. Leave the bushing missing, and deal with a rattling shifter...or yank it all out and start over. Can you guess what I did?
Of course, putting the bushing in meant the assembly didn't move around enough to actually slide it into the tunnel. One more heater control tube sacrificed itself in the name of progress, and I could
just get the assembly in through my large access hole. Then it was back to testing, adjusting, testing, adjusting, and finally welding. My transmission tunnel has suffered badly, and I'll need to run either carpet or the rubber mats (kind of my plan anyways)...but I can now say that I have all the gears and a reverse lookout.
An entire
day spend on shift linkage!!!
-Dave