Adjusting the shifter

[wdfifteen]

I had trouble adjusting the shifter in my '65. I read all the comments about just stirring the shifter through the gears and if you find them all, tighten the bolts. This wasn't working for me.
There is a great shot of the manual in this thread ( https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9484969 ) that tells you the proper way to do it, but it's not terribly explicit ("bracket?" What bracket?). I thought it would be a good idea to know why you do it that way and to figure out what I was missing.

The symptom I was having was that you had to move the shifter slightly to the right of the left stop to find first. Second was directly back if you were careful. If you moved the lever even slightly to the left when you pulled back, you got a lot of high pitched gear grinding because you had found reverse. First and second were in the middle of the H instead of the left and there was no reverse lockout. Loosening the bolts and sliding the shifter housing around got me nowhere.

I took the shifter out, turned it upside down, and bolted the reverse lockout plate in place to get an idea what was going on down there.

This is the shifter housing. The bottom arrow points to the reverse lockout plate inside the shifter housing.

This is what the reverse lockout plate looks like from above. The ramp and shoulder go up and on the right when it is installed.

This is a bottom view of reverse lockout plate bolted to the shift housing. (These pictures are upside down and backward, so up/down and left/right are reversed). The ball and the little collar are the bottom of the shift lever. This is the position it is in when the shifter is in the 1-2-3-4 H pattern. When you pull the lever to the left, the collar contacts a shoulder on the reverse lockout plate, stopping its movement to the left.

Reverse is located to the left of 2nd. To get there, when you push down on the shifter it pushes the collar below the stop shoulder. Notice the space between the shift housing and the reverse lockout plate. This is critical.

Pushing the collar down allows the shifter to move farther left.

Pulling back on the lever puts the transmission in reverse. There is a ramp on the shoulder that allows the shift lever to move up some when you are fully in reverse so the collar can clear the front of the lockout plate.

Here is where I went wrong. It was a matter of nomenclature. When the manual says to move the reverse lockout plate under the "bracket" ("bracket? What bracket?) it doesn't mean move the shift housing to the left like a lot of people suggest. As shown in the pictures there is some clearance between the shift housing and the reverse lockout plate and that clearance is CRITICAL. Unless you get lucky, you need to get out a screwdriver and get it between the tunnel and the shift housing and move the plate to the left.
I hope this helps someone save some time doing this fairly simple job.

[scottyrocks]

Yes, these shifters can be finicky.

I've had various problems finding gears, depending on what parts I replaced. Short story is that everything came together after I had replaced literally everything, including the reverse lockout plate, as these parts do wear out.

Then I left the two bolts a bit loose, drove the car hitting all the gears, and tightened everything down, and all was good.
_________________
“If you care for a thing long enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? Mending old things, preserving them, looking after them – on some level there's no rational grounds for it.”
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[Jeff O]

I'm new on here but I've been wrenching on my '60 since the 1990s and has a similar problem when I yanked the old crash box and installed a newer trans. The problem was that the detent for the shift rod coupler, on the newer year trans, was drilled in a different location.

The solution was to get the transmission into first gear, disconnect the coupler (under the panel under the rear seat) move the shift lever all the way to the upper left and tighten the coupler. Drill a new detent if you'd like but I didn't and it hasn't moved.

Also, you might check out the bushing, the shift rod rides in, in the tunnel.

Hope that helps.

[NachoCar]

Thank you, wdfifteen, for the excellent right up.

I've been a mnanul trnsmission snob since my teenage years. Only driven my project twice and shifting was the least exact as any I'd driven. I KNOW the Germans can do better than what I experienced. Obviously I missed something!!

I'm a little confused on which side the clearance between shifter housing and reverse lockout plate is crucial. You state to use a screwdriver to move the reverse lockout plate to the left.....so I'm taking this to mean towards the driver, correct?

Thanks again!