more cheap tricks (shift linkage)

[amalventano1@comcast.net (Allyn)]

for a short shifter you only need to drill some extra holes, not make an extension. the holes are
drilled at a closer radius on the tranny arms. i'll try to grab pics of the arms on the rieger
(neuspeed short) + twin to be (no shift kit currently). scott rose and i were talking about what it
takes to make the stock arms a short kit at cincy.
Al

----- Original Message -----
From: "T. Reed" <treed2@u.washington.edu>
To: <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 17, 2002 2:20 AM
Subject: more cheap tricks (shift linkage)


> Here's the second and final installment..
>
> My shifter is now down to 1/16" side-to-side play and no front-to-back
> play. The side-to-side play is coming from wear to the ball joints in the
> L-shaped pivot assembly with the plastic rods (the plastic rods are new,
> so I'm assuming the metal balls themselves are worn). I might replace the
> ball thingies at some point, but for now I'm more than happy with my
> linkage.
>
> TIP #6 - under the car, directly beneath the shift lever are a pair of
> black "top hat" bushings that I've already replaced. Unfortunately,
> neither that nor replacing the whole shift lever assembly cured the
> small amount of play introduced by this part of the linkage. So today, I
> pulled it all apart and tried to fix it. There were no holes out of round,
> but the bushings simply weren't a tight enough fit. Unable to find a
> thin enough washer of the right diameter, I grabbed a piece of
> appropriately thick stainless steel, nibbled it in to a small square with
> tin snips, and drilled a hole in it to make it sort of like a washer.
> This would have worked great.. except that with my big hands it was
> impossible the get the washer in the small crack between the pieces and
> hold everything still at the same time. So.. enter cyanoacrylate ester.
> You can find this stuff for about 3 bucks at Radio Shack as bottle of
> "brush-on future glue" or at Home Depot as "bondini the magic brush-on
> glue". It's all the same stuff, but its very useful. It's like super glue
> on crack. Dries in 15 seconds, bonds everything (eyes and skin included,
> as noted on the bottle). It produces a lot of heat and evil smelling
> fumes in the process so be careful. So basically, I glued the washer to
> the bushing. Duh. It worked well, though. I had to hammer on the thing a
> bit to get it to fit in.. but when it did, I sat in the car and shifted
> and it feels like the tranny is right under the shifter.
>
> TIP #7 - shift linkage adjustment. this is a biggie. fortunately, though..
> its a lot easier than people make it out to be. Grab a 13mm wrench and a
> 13mm socket on a t-handle and take off the clamp bolt. Then, go under the
> shift lever and move it so that the front-to-back position of the joint is
> parallel to the exact middle of the lockout plate. Grab a pair of
> plastic calipers and set them for 15mm and flip the little lock thingy on
> so they stay exactly at 15mm. Adjust the linkage so that there is an
> exactly 15mm gap between the lockout plate and the joint. I hear a
> cassette tape case works for this but I had no trouble just using the
> calipers. What I learned here, though.. is that for my car at least it had
> to be exactly 15mm. Not 13mm, not 16mm, not 14.333mm. Exactly 15mm. I
> could still shift with other adjustments but 15mm made the shifting smooth
> and easy in all gears.
>
> So what's left? Well.. I'm still getting used to the tightness of the
> linkage - the downside of the slop being gone is that there's no
> "swing zone" like there used to be so the force to shift seems higher
> since you start pushing immediately. I'm considering increasing the mass
> of my shift weight to see if this helps (don't know that it will, though).
>
> I'm also going to be building a short shift kit. I don't have a welder so
> it will be a carefully designed adapter to fit on the end of my relay arm.
> Speaking of which.. all the short shift kits I see have a lever that looks
> like this:
>
> SIDE VIEW: TOP VIEW:
> ===------------------(---)--
> | |
> | |
> | |
> | | +-------------------------------+
> | | |   /  \ |
> | | |   \  / |
> | | +-------------------------------+
> | |
> | |
> | |
> | |
>
>
> On my car, the side view is the same but the top view is all crooked, like
> this:
>
> +--------------------------_____
> |        \_
> | \_______
> +--------------------------____    /  \ |
>       \__  \  / |
> '-------
>
> It's not just smashed sideways.. it was actually cut so that there was a
> diagonal part there on the end.
>
> What's the dilly?
>
> Is this a 16v thing (to clear the downpipe or something?) or is it just
> some random mutation that my car has?
>
> I wonder because I never see short shift kits that say "all A1 except
> Scirocco 16v"..
>
> Anyone know?
>
> -Toby
>
>
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