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Sun Aug 03, 2008 8:25 pm

I left town and my roomate took the bus out and said 3rd and 4th gear dissapeared...

this had happened before and the coupler was the answer...
my friend installed a new one so i dont actually know too much about it.

where is it exactly? anyone got pics. my buddy says under the shifter theres a ball joint and kinks to the left going into third... is it supposed to? i thought that the coupler was back by the tranny...

thanks for your help...

79 bus

Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:53 am

The shift coupler is at the front of the transmission, just in front of the rear torsion tube. Check the set screw where the coupler attaches to the shift rod, odds are your pal didn't tighten it enough and it's loose.

The joint under the shifter should kink the opposite direction to shifter movement, that's how it works, but the shaft it's attached to shouldn't move to the side, just twist. There's a bushing at the very front of the shaft that could be worn or missing.

Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:03 am

very important to have the guide plate in its correct orientation for the shift lever. the 2 bent up tabs are different lengths. the long one is correctly placed toward the passenger side.

Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:38 pm

its hard to really do anything since im not there, i read my bro those comments and he says that they all seem good and yet he just lost 2nd gear too. im heading up there tomorrow, any other info would be extremely helpful!!!

Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:06 pm

When the coupler breaks the shifter won't work. Take 10 min to put in a new one. two bolts. vice grips is all you need. just look at it and shake it and you will see if it is broke. If the shift linkage is fine and you have lost one or so gears but the others work the trans needs an overhaul.

I never let a non bus person drive my bus. He can learn and break his own bus with his own money. There is a big learning curve on the proper way to drive a bus without grinding/popping/lugging gears.

Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:48 pm

ok so the bushing is missing... some mechanic there claims its not needed... is it?

Tue Aug 05, 2008 7:09 pm

Find another mechanic fast, if VW put it there your bus needs it.
The shifter will sorta work without it, but in a super sloppy, gear roulette kinda way.

Tue Aug 05, 2008 8:24 pm

KevbOliver wrote: ok so the bushing is missing... some mechanic there claims its not needed... is it?

You are talking about that $1 plastic bushing up front? You need it and for the $1 it is only a shmuck would tell you you don't. You should still be able to get it in 4 gears without it... but without it the shifter is so sloppy I could perhaps see a bus loose gears... but not in my experience.

Was the trans acting up, smelling, making noise, popping out of gears? this normally happens before it breaks

Thu Aug 07, 2008 12:39 am

so im going to buy a coupler and the bushing while i'm in san francisco then head up to the bus and try it out...

my friends are saying it might be a driveshaft fork thing in the tranny... ive been trying to find info on this but im not sure what its called...any ideas??

id drove the bus right up to the point when this happened and there were no signs of the tranny going out.

ug... thanks

Thu Aug 14, 2008 12:50 pm

Now im back at the bus and i dissasembled from the shifter back to the coupler and cleaned it and put it back together and still no 2nd 3rd or 4th gears. The coupler is fine and now that i think about it, the shifter has always been floppy so im biting my lip and saying its the transmission. sigh.
so is it worth it to rebuild it or find a rebuilt one, or a used one.

thanks for all of your knowledges

Thu Aug 14, 2008 1:03 pm

You may find this interesting.....

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/091Transmission.html

Thu Aug 14, 2008 5:13 pm

I had a similar problem about a year ago. Check this thread out. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=252836&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:26 pm

thanks everybody for all the help

okay. Ive got the motor and tranny out now. I opened up the nose cone and found shattered plastic all over. I believe it belongs to the main bearing and so... im going to try and manually shift into third and fourth to see if its worth it to fix the bearing...

Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:40 pm

So yeah, the main bearing was shot- so i checked to make sure that the tranny would go into all the gears and it did! so i ordered a new bearing and got a mechanic to pull out the old and put in the new- then i put it all back together and its smooth sailin from here... until next time.
Thanks to everyone for your help! Keepin it Alive Baby!