I have watched the video, no good, and searched the forum but to no avail.

This morning shifting into third was greeted by a slight grinding noise. Tried again, same, so stayed in second and trickled around the estate to home. Reverse went in with a struggle, but on the drive all gears were selectable, if not as easy as they should be. Attempts at pulling away in each gear were good too, no jumping out or funny noises.

It seems I have the early shifter mechanism which, Haynes says, needs special tools to set. ?Really? The 02J/K mentioned don't tie in with my DQY code. That may be me though.

The car was warm not hot, and although had been awkward to put into first and reverse has certainly not displayed any symptoms prior to this.

Any pointers would be nice since this car was meant to allow me to do some work on the LT, and since the computer is peeing me off too has not helped my demeanour.

Edited 6 March, 201511 yr by CRB

Into the breach after a bit of reading http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=195536

 

I tried pressing the gearbox end of the cables to take out any slop, but there was none really, actually I could hardly tell the difference, so I started taking the centre console out to have a look at the shifter mechanism itself. Being able to see what was, or was not, happening helps a lot.

 

The forward gears are a bit notchy, but reverse has a definite physical problem. Pushing down does not get the lower channel far enough down to clear the gate without pulling it backwards to then push forwards into reverse. Not easy, even when you can see what you are trying to do. there is a lot of unnecessary movement in the stick too, which does not help.

 

Back out to try again.

It looks like the stick is about 10/12mm out of for/aft alignment and 2mm out vertically when pushed full left and down as far as the mechanism will allow. That is, in order to get reverse to engage, the stick needs to be pulled back to lose the 10/12mm, at which point it clears the gate and goes in.

 

Since this is all new to me I am stumped. ?How can this situation even begin to evolve, especially since all was reasonably well over the previous fortnight?

 

?Is the only place for adjustment at the gearbox? There does not seem to be any further means.

Done, not perfect but better, apart from reverse due to the observations above. Quite bizarre.

 

Since I have not taken the gearlever assembly apart I have no idea if something has come apart, but since the movement is basically good, I doubt that.

Last night I took a few hours of internet searching and reading a lot on these 02J gearshifts. There were some very interesting and useful things learned, but unfortunately nothing which helped that much.

 

The gearshift bushes can be replaced, modifications to the throw in both axes can be done relatively easily, and at the gearbox end the plastic cable end bracket is easily made in metal if required.

 

However, at no point did the issue of a physical problem with the reverse gate get a mention. I have had a few miles this morning with the gearbox adjusted fully forward and fully back, and then in the middle. At each stop for changing the adjustment, I checked how the gears were moving at a standstill before moving off and as expected, fully forward made 5th difficult and fully back made 1st and reverse more difficult. In the middle everything went in more easily, though the physical issue is still there.

 

I can see the guide and the gate not lining up correctly, but it is a little less difficult to engage reverse.

 

I do not feel that this is 'solved' as such since I think there is more to it than adjustment needed, but  being new to all this, I am not in the position to understand the deeper issues, if there are any. Something is not right but it will have to do.