It's not really a problem anymore, but thought of sharing as it may help someone.

 

A few months ago I bought an 2000 Octavia MK1, AVU motor. From the first day the gearbox always felt a little hard to play with in all gears, when compared to my other Octavia.

 

After replacing the gearbox oil (with G060726A2) it got a lot better, but not as good as I hoped it would be.

 

About a week ago I started having difficulty in engaging the first gear. I had to engage 2nd gear or reverse before going into first gear, which was really annoying.

 

Last weekend I decided to replace the dogbone, something that I had already planned to do. After all, time takes its toll on components, and it was not that expensive at around 14€.

 

Much to my surprise, after going for a drive the gearbox seemed completely different, as smooth as it may have been on day one. My guess is that the new dogbone slightly changed the position of the motor, due to the bushes being stiffer, and the gearshift linkage now has the correct play. The old dogbone's bushes don't seem that bad, they actually looked pretty "normal" to me.

On 08/03/2021 at 22:31, sirlancelotksa said:

It's not really a problem anymore, but thought of sharing as it may help someone.

 

A few months ago I bought an 2000 Octavia MK1, AVU motor. From the first day the gearbox always felt a little hard to play with in all gears, when compared to my other Octavia.

 

After replacing the gearbox oil (with G060726A2) it got a lot better, but not as good as I hoped it would be.

 

About a week ago I started having difficulty in engaging the first gear. I had to engage 2nd gear or reverse before going into first gear, which was really annoying.

 

Last weekend I decided to replace the dogbone, something that I had already planned to do. After all, time takes its toll on components, and it was not that expensive at around 14€.

 

Much to my surprise, after going for a drive the gearbox seemed completely different, as smooth as it may have been on day one. My guess is that the new dogbone slightly changed the position of the motor, due to the bushes being stiffer, and the gearshift linkage now has the correct play. The old dogbone's bushes don't seem that bad, they actually looked pretty "normal" to me.

You could always try following this guide to tighten up an slack in the shifter.

 

To go even further you could change some of the bushings, etc.

 

2 hours ago, DeanVRS20VT said:

You could always try following this guide to tighten up an slack in the shifter.

 

 

got there beforee me

 

Hi.

 

Thank you for the advice!

 

Actually my gearbox selector operates in a different way. The selector actuates 4 links; they are marked in the drawing below:

 

 

 

In my other Skoda, one of the links got damaged and couldn't be kept in place; I lost 1st and 2nd gears. It was a simple fix, and I decided to replace 3 of the 4 links, as others were probably on their path to destruction. Pictures below:

 

 

The culprit was most probably an oil leak from the rocker cover gasket, that I neglected for a while.

 

Edited 13 March, 20215 yr by john999boy
At OP's request.