just done a gt conversion on the cl, and now need to set up the gear linkage after I've cleaned it all up.

car now finds 3rd,4th,5th and reverse????????????

also what is best material to make rear engine, g/box mount out of?

Well, this is the way I do it...

1) With the clamp underneath loose so the shift rod and shift rod clamp are free to move independantly of each other, put the gearbox into 5th gear. (this is copied exactly from how you would do it in the car, so to the far right then forwards, into the gearbox)

2) Now go in the car (or get a friend to do this bit) and select 5th on the gearstick by going as far right and as far forwards as possible. (far right being very important or you may not be able to select 1st and 2nd)

3) Now, back under the car have a look how much of the shift rod is poking out of the end of the clamp. The right amount is about half a centimetre. Usually it is stuck out too far at this point so push it back in until it's in the right place.

4) Tighten everything up. You are done!

N. B. Check all the gears can be engaged. The most awkward one can be reverse. The half centimeter adjustment in part 3 is supposed to find the notch in the gear stick housing for putting into reverse. But depending on the car this may need to be increased or decreased where required. Gears 1 to 5 should work no problem. The only other reason gears may be unselectable is through worn or missing linkage parts. There is a polo (the mint) size and shaped bush that can often go missing when swapping things about that can make gear selection very sloppy. There is also another bush the same sort of size and shape of a hula hoop that fits inside the ball & cage which gives rise to the same sloppyness when missing.

Hope that helps.

I've just done this, finally worked it out lol.

ONe question though - i seem to have to select 2nd to make 1st easier to select - does this mean the box is knackered?

I've just done this, finally worked it out lol.

ONe question though - i seem to have to select 2nd to make 1st easier to select - does this mean the box is knackered?

nah that means teh gap youve set it still wrong...

also check the condition is of the selector rods are ok and none of the bushes that are meant to be on the each of the rods arent perished

heres the way i set it for my merk1 - taking from the bad habit rabbit page

http://us.geocities.com/jonnyguru/vw/shifter.html

Having problems with your shifter? The nice thing about the A1 shifter system, compared to the newer cable type systems, is it's simplicity. Roll under your car and you will find the bottom of your shifter attached to a steel rod, attached to a black plastic ball that translates your movements into left and right and forward and back movements through two other arms that are attached by two plastic linkages to the shifter arm on the tranny. maintenance is minimal and adjustment is simple.

First, you would want to check for play or signs of wear. ANY signs of play or wear warrants the purchase of a shifter bushing kit. Even at the dealer, these kits run $6. I feel that, there is no excuse not to buy this kit and replace every bushing on the system. The other place to look for distortion of the plastic ended "dumbbell" linkages that are the go betweens of the different shift rods. I've seen where the steel center of the linkages are slightly bent or the plastic ends are oblong and cause unnecessary play. Replace these accordingly. You may find that these linkages can be effectively replaced with junkyard units.

If all is good as far as play or wear goes, and you continue to have problems shifting, let's consider the following: Problems with shifting can ABSOLUTELY be sourced to the transmission itself. Grab the shift arm that is directly attached to the tranny and go through the gears. The shifting motion should be just as smooth and predictable as you would expect it to be at the shift lever. If you find that third gear is where first should be or that reverse is where first should be, then you have an issue with adjustment. Fortunately, adjustment of this kind is easy.

Keep in mind that the gate for reverse (the piece that makes you push down to engage reverse) is in the shifter unit. It's a black piece of metal that you can see by removing the cover at the bottom of the shifter. The cover comes right off without special tools. Once removed the exposed underside will look like this:

The piece to the left in this shot is the lock out gate for reverse. The brown piece of plastic you see (referred to as the 'stop finger' in the Bentley Manual *) is what prevents the shifter from nonchalantly going into reverse. If you push the shifter all the way to the left, the plastic hits against the metal gate and stops the shifter from moving any farther left. You can then proceed to move the shifter forward, thus engaging first gear. When you push down on the shifter, you allow the brown plastic piece to clear the metal gate, thus allowing access to reverse (thus the exposed black metal on the piece in this picture from where the plastic piece has scraped away all of the white lithium grease). When properly adjusted, the shifter at rest should allow 15MM between the plastic piece you see above and the metal gate. You can see that in this picture, this car's shifter is out of adjustment because the clearance between these two parts seems to be only 10MM or less. What happens in this scenario is that first gear is nearly inaccessible because the plastic piece prematurely hits the metal gate preventing the shifter from moving completely to the left. If this gap was greater than 15MM, you would find reverse to be very difficult to engage, or the shifter would easily pop out of reverse because the plastic piece would not stay under the metal gate. There is no adjustment directly under the shifter, but you can see the solid rod leading off the top of the photo. Follow this rod to the down pipe of the exhaust manifold. Adjusting this gap is as easy as twisting the rod one way or another to create the correct amount of gap.

Undo the clamp (arrow points to the clamp I'm talking about) and pull the rod out. You need to pull the rod out because the rod is splined. Pull it out slowly so you do not end up moving the rod TOO MUCH. Pull the rod out, turn it in the direction you need to be going in (one or two notches), reinsert and clamp it back down. Wiggle the whole linkage system (to make sure the shifter is "at rest" at neutral). Go back to your shifter and check the gap between the brown plastic piece (which as of yet has a better name) and the metal plate. Repeat as necessary.

me and my mate steve did it in about 10 minutes, me under the car i put the box in 5th put it all together loose, steve in the car sellected 5th. tightened it up and they all sellected but 1st and 2nd didnt quite go in all the way "no click" so steve in car sellected 3rd, i under the car loosened linkage off backed the linkage off about 5mm- 10mm and tightened it up again. "test drive" sorted!

rob.