Hi Matt, My 87 wolfsburg vanagon was popping out of 4th gear last year; I drove it for about 6 months (approximately 20K miles as a daily driver) using a bungie cord from the seat belt receiver to the shift lever in order to hold it in 4th. After a couple months of driving it like this I started to hear a whining noise in 1,2 and 3. Although I was assured it would probably last 50K miles while making that noise, I started looking for another transmission. Then back in November 2008 I was able to source a replacement transmission and since the swap (December 27th) it has not once popped out of fourth (knock on wood). No modifications were made to the shift mechanism when the transmission was swapped. Reverse playing hard to get; ...that could definitely be a shift linkage issue. But the fourth gear popping out is caused by worn edges on the teeth of 4th gear and there's nothing gonna fix that without replacing the transmission or parts thereof. The good news for you is that you're not nearly so far away from Darryl at AA transaxle; it might be best to give him a call and see what's involved in getting inside that transmission and making things right. Happy Trails, Greg Potts 1973 westfakia 1987 Wolfsburg weekender www.busesofthecorn.com
Quoting Matt Thyer <matt_thyer@HOTMAIL.COM>: > Shift box and bushing are crappy: The biggest and most annoying problem here > is that you have to hold the stick in 4th gear when traveling at speed. > Otherwise the stick shift pops out of 4th. I'm pretty certain this is > caused by wear on the bushing, but feel free to offer up advice as you feel > necessary. Additionally, reverse is a pain in the rear end to find. This > is most likely the result of worn shift box parts as there's some play in > the stick, but once you find it the gear works great. |
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