Anyone got experience with the linkage on the vRS gearbox? (I think it's 02j)

 

I got it a bit wrong when messing with it before so I had no fifth gear. Whilst rectifying this I discovered that I can either have 1st to 5th smooth as silk but no reverse, or I can have reverse through 4th smooth but not 5th. After a lot of fiddling I have all gears, but 1st to 2nd is a little crunchy (and has been ever since I bought the car).

 

Now I can adjust the linkage and get a perfect 1st to 2nd, but as above doing so kills either 5th or Reverse or makes them very tricky to engage. Is this a 'feature' of this gearbox or do I just need to keep persevering to find the sweet spot? I'm also wondering if the dogbone bush replacement might help, AFAIK the car is still on it's originals...

If its any consolation mate my reverse and 1st was never that nice, 1st was downright sticky at times. I had dogbone bushes and an oil change on my to do list to hopefully rectify it but as you know I never got round to it. I have no adjustment experience unfortunately.

Not sure if there is something about vag gearboxes, my old Corrado and Toledo also had a sticky 1st gear...never a desperate problem but a tad annoying at times.

Have you reset your gear selector linkage as per this video :-

 

Also, when you get stuff out of the way to do it again, grab the big counterweight on the linkage and try to rock it sideways against the alloy tower. 

 

There is a bush in the alloy tower that the linkage sits on that can collapse and trash the gear selection too.

 

One other regular 1st to 2nd annoyance in the gearchange dept is the clutch slave cylinder can weep pressure bot not enough to show a drop in fluid. When you drop out the slave you will see it will be quite damp if it is starting to weep pressure. This is probably due to clutches getting heavier with age and loading the cylinder more, but I have no real proof for that statement.

I have too much play in my gearstick, (high milage car but apart from a bit of slop is perfect).

 

I adjusted the cables last night, how easy was that, brilliant!

 

So, they are perfect but I noticed that there is probably a bit of wear in the protruding plastic ball that comes off the bottom of the gearstick. Can that be replaced?

 

Also, the plastic slidey clip that the steel ball clicks into adjacent to the weighted arm above the gearbox, this has a little play as well. I assume that this part can be bought separately?

Search for www.dieselgeek.com they do repair parts for the linkage.

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I have too much play in my gearstick, (high milage car but apart from a bit of slop is perfect).

 

I adjusted the cables last night, how easy was that, brilliant!

 

So, they are perfect but I noticed that there is probably a bit of wear in the protruding plastic ball that comes off the bottom of the gearstick. Can that be replaced?

 

Also, the plastic slidey clip that the steel ball clicks into adjacent to the weighted arm above the gearbox, this has a little play as well. I assume that this part can be bought separately?

This should give you the answers to what you might need and how it is available - http://www.partscats.info/skoda/en/?i=cat_vag_models&brand=sk&number=81&set=89&ein=2004&f=252&hauptgr=1234567890&hg=7&grf=071130202&bf=71130&hgug=711&ug=11&parent_id=70818