As in the title ; driving home last night in my AMF project car (287k miles), went to change into 3rd after pulling out of the local supermarket - and the gearlever simply wouldn't move across the gate beyond the axis of 1st / 2nd. Drove the remaining 4 miles home in 2nd at 3100rpm / 30mph.
Although the change into third has always had a little resistance (to be expected on the mileage bearing in mind that this gear is the one most known to be problematic over time), changing slowly and deliberately has always got round the issue - now it simply isn't there. There were no indications on the commute in or driving to the supermarket after work that something was changing.
Change between 1st and 2nd (and into reverse) completely normal in terms of smoothness, so the fore-aft cable aspect of the gearchange (rotating the selector shaft axially) is unaffected. Clutch feel and biting points also completely normal.
At the moment I'm assuming something to do with the "left-right" cable (that rotates the bell crank on top of the gearbox, lifting the selector shaft in / out of the box to move between planes, or at worst, failure of something inside the box related to that action. The movement in question would be lifting the shaft as rightward movement of the gearlever appears to result in the bell crank converting that into an upward pull (based on VAG SSP diagrams of the selector / gearchange cable arrangements).
As luck would have it, I've got the 140k GPK box from my 6-speed converted BHC on hand, and the mechanic who did that swap has his workshop 100 yards up the road, but if it is a simpler problem than this to fix (I've accumulated various bushings and stuff planning to try to eliminate linkage slop) then I hope I can have a crack.
Going to get the bonnet off, disconnect cables and have a waggle of the counterweight to see if it can be moved by hand - at least it is sunny albeit very frosty!
Any thoughts gratefully appreciated.
Although the change into third has always had a little resistance (to be expected on the mileage bearing in mind that this gear is the one most known to be problematic over time), changing slowly and deliberately has always got round the issue - now it simply isn't there. There were no indications on the commute in or driving to the supermarket after work that something was changing.
Change between 1st and 2nd (and into reverse) completely normal in terms of smoothness, so the fore-aft cable aspect of the gearchange (rotating the selector shaft axially) is unaffected. Clutch feel and biting points also completely normal.
At the moment I'm assuming something to do with the "left-right" cable (that rotates the bell crank on top of the gearbox, lifting the selector shaft in / out of the box to move between planes, or at worst, failure of something inside the box related to that action. The movement in question would be lifting the shaft as rightward movement of the gearlever appears to result in the bell crank converting that into an upward pull (based on VAG SSP diagrams of the selector / gearchange cable arrangements).
As luck would have it, I've got the 140k GPK box from my 6-speed converted BHC on hand, and the mechanic who did that swap has his workshop 100 yards up the road, but if it is a simpler problem than this to fix (I've accumulated various bushings and stuff planning to try to eliminate linkage slop) then I hope I can have a crack.
Going to get the bonnet off, disconnect cables and have a waggle of the counterweight to see if it can be moved by hand - at least it is sunny albeit very frosty!
Any thoughts gratefully appreciated.