Manual shifter mystery

[SJ]

keywords: shifter, shift, stick, manual, loose shifter, hard shifting into
5th

Patient is 88 5kq

I was having a small problem shifting into 5th gear this weekend. It went
into gear with a little hunting.

I took apart the shifter today, found nothing wrong with the guts . . .no
broken pieces. I did notice that pushing the shifter far right against the
stop resulted in 5th gear not going in . .. backing off from the right stop
about an 1/8" resulted in gear meshing. I guess I can adjust the end stop
bracket so that 5th engages smoothly when shifter hits the right end stop.

Now the puzzler . . . what keeps the shifter centered in the neutral
position? There are no springs inside the shifter mechanism to keep the
shifter centered. Are there springs at the trasmission end? Inside the
transmission?

My nuetral position is sloppy . . the stick moves left and right about 1 1/2
inches when in neutral. There is spring tension when pushing to the left .
.for 1st and 2nd gears. Unless I apply slight pressure to the left, I can
easily shift into 5th instead of 3rd gear. There is lots of slop in neutral
. . the center of the H between 3 and 4th and 5th and reverse.

On my 100q . .the shifter is centered nicely in neutral . . . right between
3th and 4th in the H. There is nice spring tension when pushing stick to
left(1st and 2nd), or to the right(5th and reverse). The neutral position is
crisply centered . . .perfect for going directly into 3rd or 4th gear.

I crawled under the car to check linkages. The hardware holding the
pushrods(31, 32) is tight. The selector shaft hardware appears ok . .. kinda
hard to see up there on top of the tranny.

I reached up and felt around the top of the tranny where the tranny shift
lever(11) and connecting rod(48) are located . . . feels like worn linkages
up there . . . some slop up there.

What is the function of the Push rod(32) . . the bottom of the pushrod has a
cup where the bottom end of the stick shifter is located? I do not see it
doing anything when shifting thru all the gears. Is the function to provide
relative movement when the engine and tranny twists under torque . . so that
the shifter right and left end stops wont prevent shifting when under
torque?


SJ
85 Dodge PU, D-250, 318, auto
85 Audi 4k - - sold but still on the road
88 Audi 5kq
90 Audi 100q