Gearlever bushings replaced, short shift and selector towers

[davidwort 0]

This is going to be a long-un, but the gist of it is replacing the bushings and lever guide to improve feel of the gearshift.

I've also been looking at golf/passat parts in comparison as some are different and some the same as the Corrado.

 

Firstly I need to thank in advance Steveo29, the links he gave me to dieselgeek in particular I recommend reading this install procedure and some other info from Canadian corrado club, in particular here and a few other places.

 

It's possible to remove the necessary shifter parts from inside the car with a slight 'modification' to the lip of the hole in the centre tunnel the shifter sits in.

It's not the correct way to do it, but it beats removing the exhaust and going under the car to remove everything as far as I'm concerned.

the Dieselgeek site has a good how-to on this.

 

Corrado conversion V2 (3).pdfshifter-overview.jpg[/attachment:1jlpxhfg]

 

the selector housing and pivot stud are key to everything, the 'mod' to the lip is needed to extract the pivot stud and the selector housing can then be removed to change the bushes.

Book1.pdfpivot-stud-removal.jpg[/attachment:1jlpxhfg]

stromlaufplan_gamma4.pdfpivot-stud-removed.jpg[/attachment:1jlpxhfg]

 

once the stud is out the selector housing is pretty easy to remove by removing the small circlip that holds the shift lever guide (535 711 055D - about 4 quid from VW) in place, slide the guide off the selector housing and it just lifts out.

 

this was where I compared the Corrado parts to some passat ones, after careful checking I found the following:

ETKA Corrado.pdfparts1.jpg[/attachment:1jlpxhfg]

 

and this diagram from the Canadian Corrado Club helps:

stromlaufplan_gamma4.pdfShifterAssembly.gif[/attachment:1jlpxhfg]

 

So the Golf g60, Passat and golf mk3 use the same parts, the corrado has a lower gearlever so they're adjusted the pivot point to make about the same throw.

This got me thinking, perhaps i could use a combination of passat parts and Corrado parts to make a short-shift.

I think it is possible, with less work than the Canadian Club member went through, all I think needs to be modified is the passat selector housing to retain the same position of the bottom ball that operates the side-to-side cable.

I actually fitted the passat parts in my car and the front-rear throw is reduced by a subtle 3cm from about 13cm to 10cm which I think will make it feel slicker without getting too notchy or hard to shift, or putting excessive extra forces on the bushings etc. (a bit more force will be needed as the pivot position moves towards the gearknob)

Corrado92.pdfcorrado-plate-shift-throw.jpg[/attachment:1jlpxhfg]

 

passat throw:

passat climatronic wiring diags.pdfpassat-plate-shift-throw.jpg[/attachment:1jlpxhfg]

 

finally the selector housings side-by-side:

climatronic wiring-Golf from May 01.pdfIMG_3934.JPG[/attachment:1jlpxhfg]

Passat on left, Corrado parts on right

 

Now I've changed the bushings and the lever guide the gearchange feel is much better, it obviously doesn't change the condition of the gearbox, but it's well worth doing on a high-miler, in total the 3 bushes and the lever guide cost me £5.12 with a trader discount of about 10% or so, so the bits are peanuts.

 

[strike:1jlpxhfg]One[/strike:1jlpxhfg] Two other things, I 'm also using one of steveo29's prototype nylon cable end bushes at the gearbox end of the shift cable, that works well with these replacement parts too and I also slightly filed a groove in the edge of the lever part of the selector housing to make the centering spring (torsion spring in the diagram) fit tightly on both sides, this removes any 'wobble' play in neutral, which makes the whole thing feel even more solid.

the screwdriver is pointing to the rest position of the top part of the torsion spring, I simply filed a few mm off this rest/lever part to make the ends of the spring touch either side of the lever in the netral position of the gearstick.

2.8l 24v Climatronic system.pdfcentering-spring-rest.jpg[/attachment:1jlpxhfg]

 

Oh, one more!

the later shifters use a better circlip to hold the lever guide in place (the ones that can pop off making reverse hard to get), not sure if late corrados have this type, but the passat circlip actually has a locking tab stopping it coming off, and is slightly sprung against the lever guide, helping to reduce side-to-side play.

If you have the type on the left of the pic below, the type on the right is better, but better still would be the passat type, not shown, that has the locking tab in the middle, only problem is that it requires a selector housing with a pivot machined to accept the locking tab and I'm not sure if the corrados ever got this type.

locking-washers.jpg[/attachment:1jlpxhfg]

 

Phew, any questions?

 

- it's pretty easy all-in-all, took me an evening, but I faffed about with trying passat bits and taking lots of photos!

- part numbers are:

shift lever guide - 535 711 055D - IRO 3-4 quid

bushes -

357 711 590B

357 711 124A

357 711 590C the 3 of them only add up to about £2

[A-J 0]

Excellent guide, thanks. Is this an easy job? You give that impression but it looks like it could be a fiddly one.

[Lufbramatt 0]

excellent info, cheers for the write up.

 

do you have the part numbers of the new bushings that you used?

 

cheers :D

[Jim 2]

Brilliant guide David! Thanks for taking the effort to share it up.

[steveo29 0]

does the buffer on the left side of the stick actualy rub agaisnt the shifter box when selecting 5th? mine looks a tad close but i cant see anything wrong

[davidwort 0]

think it's totally clear, but will have another look at some point and see if I can see what you mean.

[boost monkey 0]

If this doesn't make it into the KB, I'm gonna kick a pigeon.

[junkie 0]

Does doing all this basically make the Dieselgeek short shifter thats no longer available?

[mrbeige 0]

I'm not actually MrBeige, but I can't be arsed to log him out and log in myself.

 

Basically, the late VR change feels quite different to the early valver, is there a difference in the actual mechs in the car between the years? Or is it because my selector tower in the gearbox is rooted?

 

I think half my problems are actually the side to side motion, the lever in the VR impinges on the edges of the housing when selecting reverse or 5th. Is there a way to reduce this with OEM parts? Otherwise I was looking at the gruvenparts shortshift kit.

[junkie 0]

And can you add the selector housing to the parts list

[steveo29 0]

I'm not actually MrBeige, but I can't be arsed to log him out and log in myself.

 

Basically, the late VR change feels quite different to the early valver, is there a difference in the actual mechs in the car between the years? Or is it because my selector tower in the gearbox is rooted?

 

I think half my problems are actually the side to side motion, the lever in the VR impinges on the edges of the housing when selecting reverse or 5th. Is there a way to reduce this with OEM parts? Otherwise I was looking at the gruvenparts shortshift kit.

 

 

the early gearbox towers were rather crude , david got me a later passat tower that is much inproved over the early ones, it made a fair differance to the quality of the shift

 

straight swap too

[boost monkey 0]

the early gearbox towers were rather crude , david got me a later passat tower that is much inproved over the early ones, it made a fair differance to the quality of the shift

 

straight swap too

 

any details?

[davidwort 0]

And can you add the selector housing to the parts list

 

those numbers are in the 'comparison' coloured table in the 4th image from the top.

 

 

any details?

[strike:3tpg4zt7]I'll add details in the original post at the top[/strike:3tpg4zt7]

no I won't, already reached max no. of attachments!

I'll do it here :)

 

Some info on 'gearbox end' shift towers - added 9/3/08

The 02A cable change boxes from the initial passat boxes launched in 1988, up to the late facelifted passat in 1996 have a series of re-designed shift towers with minor variations as VW tweaked them.

All seem to work in any age of 02A box, but some require a change of bottom bearing which requires the oil to be drained and re-filled, if you have a post 92 Corrado, the bottom bearing is the bit under the box, in line with the shift tower above, that has a VW emblem cast into the cap, pre 91/92 cars don't have the emblem, all designs are held in with two bolts and a bit of sealant which can make them tricky to remove.

stromlaufplan_gamma4.pdfImg_3740.jpg[/attachment:3tpg4zt7]

the main difference in the towers is the re-design of the selector lever (left to right movement of gearlever), this moves from being mounted side-by-side with the shift cable on the pre 92 boxes to mounted one above the other on the post 92 cars, a re-designed braket on top of the gearbox with 3 mounting points rather than two is the biggest visual clue to the type. If you change types the braket needs changing too. Cables stay the same though.

On the selector lever the post 92 item has a plastic connector for the end of the cable, a rather strange design which itself has had several variations in part numbers but all of them are prone to breaking as they're made out of brittle plastic, easy to mould for production but a daft idea.

The latest of the shift towers on the last of the passats (and presumably mk3 GTI's) is shown below, this has a few unique points, but as Steve found, still seems to work fine in an early 02A box.

Corrado92.pdfIMG_3750.jpg[/attachment:3tpg4zt7]

below is a mid production item with later style selector top, but not the cut out and sprung bearing of the late one above.

passat climatronic wiring diags.pdfIMG_3751.jpg[/attachment:3tpg4zt7]

 

the next photo is of the late bottom bearing (with the VW emblem) which needs to be used with the 16mm shaft, post 92 type tower.

climatronic wiring-Golf from May 01.pdfIMG_3746.jpg[/attachment:3tpg4zt7]

 

just to add to the confusion, it seems that around 1991, VW tried the new style tower selector top with the early 15mm bottom bearing/shaft, these make swapping to the later design easier as you don't have to remove the bottom bearing from an early box and drain the oil, I haven't tried one back to back with the late 16mm shaft yet so I don't know if the 16mm shaft makes them better, that's the type Steve is using from a 1995 Passat on his 1990? g60 golf.

What really puzzled me about the 1991 passat one in the pic below is it has a different shaft (15mm) early type but the same part number to the 16mm shaft one from the 1993 car, only way to check is look at the top of the selector mech, if it has the later style with cables above one another, but the old bottom bearing cap underneath (no VW emblem) then it's one of these hybrid ones.

2.8l 24v Climatronic system.pdflabelled towers.jpg[/attachment:3tpg4zt7]

 

The other thing to note is that the post 91/92 type of tower has a shift weight bolted to the shift cable end, these can be retro-fitted to 1988-91 16v cars, but may foul the PS reservoir a bit (don't think this is a problem on G60), you can just about get away with it and it does make even the early tower feel a bit more positive in engaging gear, although I think Steve has been trying a fully re-bushed system with and without the weight and can't decide which feels best :)

p1.jpg[/attachment:3tpg4zt7]

[steveo29 0]

im running it without the weight now..and ive got a feeling the later tower reduces side side slop a bit too, id considered knocking up a side to side reducer like the gruven one but after considering it i feel the gears are close enough already

[mattkh 0]

think it's totally clear, but will have another look at some point and see if I can see what you mean.

Hi

Thank you for this excellent piece.

Just a simple question. The left to right movement of the gearstick is transferred to up and down movement of the gear shifter in the engine compartment. What mechanism does this ?

[davidwort 0]

think it's totally clear, but will have another look at some point and see if I can see what you mean.

Hi

Thank you for this excellent piece.

Just a simple question. The left to right movement of the gearstick is transferred to up and down movement of the gear shifter in the engine compartment. What mechanism does this ?

 

not sure exactly what you mean, but,

the ball at the base of the gearlever plate moves another small lever arrangement which translates into forward/back motion of the selector cable

 

at the gearbox end, the top one of the two levers on the selector tower is moved back and forth by the cable (top one of the two cables on the later cars bracket over the gearbox, left one, from front of car on the earlier ones), the shift tower mechansim translates that movement into an up/down motion, this is the part of the later cars system that causes problems with breaking as part of it is a brittle black plastic piece clamped to a metal lever, it's hard to explain but pretty obvious if you get someone else to move the gearlever left to right and you watch the tower on top of the gearbox.

[Toad 0]

shift lever guide - 535 711 055D - IRO 3-4 quid

 

That part no. according to your table is the corrado selector lever guide, didn't you say you had fitted the passat unit (375 711 055 D) ?

 

I added you on messenger so that I could bother you with other random questions about this, hope that's not a problem?

 

Tom

[davidwort 0]

I fitted the passat parts just to see the effect of moving the pivot point on the throw, you can't actually use it without cutting and welding as the bottom ball sits too low to operate the side to side action relay lever underneath, I will have a go at it though, especially as I won't be modding any of the original Corrado bits.

[Lufbramatt 0]

some excellent info on this thread, cheers guys.

 

I own both a 1990 passat and a 1995 passat, and the shift is very different between the 2 (they have similar milage). Both go into reverse and 5th with no problems.

 

The 90 has the earlier shift tower and no weight, whereas the 95 has the later tower and shift weight. To be honest I find the shift to be much better on the 90 passat, although is is slightly more "clunky" (the 95 feels like a much more modern car) the throw is slightly longer with teh earlier tower and the gears are much easier to find. The 95' gears are much closer to the point that it is very easy to "lose" 4th, which is not good when trying to shift quickly.

 

Eventually the engine out of the 95 will be going in the 90 shell, and i think ill be sticking with the early gearstick-end shift tower (re bushed) with the gearbox and shoft weight out of the 95.

[steveo29 0]

might be of intrest to some of you wishing to imrove the shift bush?

 

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