Hi, Just did a 2000km+ trip to the UK and the car had been motionless for almost a year with only being moved very rarely. Car in question: VW MK3 16V GTI (ABF) with 02A gearbox. The lever mechanism has been adjusted some time ago and the gear shifts were very good for the age of the car and gears were selected effortlesly. During the trip itself all was fine and I had no gear selection problems, only thing that gave during the trip was the heat guard of the engine, it seems to have cracked and started rattling - I was afraid it was the exhaust but thankfully no. So anyway some 2 days after trip driving slowly I couldn't select 2nd gear all of a sudden, it just felt mushy and wouldn't click/lock. I stopped, and it would work, but as soon as car is in motion - no 2nd gear. Had a m8 help me sort it out today - but no luck. Tried adjusting the levers on the gearbox but all we could get was either reverse and no 2nd gear, 2nd gear and no reverse or neither. The thing is when selecting gear from interior, it seems the lever doesn't push it enough, like 1cm short, you can of course click it in gear with your hand under the bonnet. M8 tried twisting the cable a bit to make it shorter half a turn - seemed to work for 5mins when going slowly, but as I took a short drive, 2nd wouldn't lock again and 4th was gone as well or engaged at will. We ended up calling it a day leaving me with R,1st,3rd,5th gears - what a pleasure to drive. Maybe the whole mechanism is too worn out and has too much play. Because I can sometimes select 2nd gear if going to 5th first. Tried searching for the mechanism in ebay but no luck so far. Any tips/suggestions are very welcome! I am not too smart in the whole mechanical department so any help is very appreciated. Reading other threads it seems that the mechanism might be called a shifter tower - but no luck searching like that in ebay. Cheers, Urmas
