here's a diagram of the shift linkage for a manual transmission on an a1 platform
volkswagen so that would be like your early 80s rabbit jetta scirocco pickup cabriolet that use
the four speed or the five speed transaxle this is the rod that is attached to the shift lever that's
between the driver and passenger seat so then that rod goes through this shift rod bearing which is
a spherical bearing that lets it rotate as well as move in and out and then it clamps
into this thing called the selector lever and there's a difference between the four speed and
the five-speed linkage so one of the problems you run into if you've got a vehicle with a four-speed
axle number one it's hard to find a replacement so if you can't get the old transaxle rebuilt
or it's too expensive there's many more five speed transaxles out there people will buy the
five-speed part and then assume hey i'll just put all the five-speed linkage pieces on and i'm set
but the one thing that gets them this part here is attached to this shift rod and that's
attached to the firewall basically this shift rod bearing is clamped up underneath the body
this rod runs through that bearing and this piece here is clamped on to that there's a difference
in this part between four and five speed so if we look here this is a part that vw
apparently made at one time i've never seen one of these so this is this clamp right here
and that's where the shift rod plugs into this a position is the four speed ball stud
and this b position is the five speed ball stud and the reason for that that connects to this
rear selector rod so you rotate this rod and this selector lever swings back and forth and that
swings on this little bell crank here side to side and then that
pushes front and back through this front selector rod into the transaxle selector shaft here
and that's what shifts between the groups of gear so you've got first and second and
then third and fourth and reverse like actually it's reverse one two three four so there's three
selection ranges in and out and then you can go side to side so first gear second gear
and then you have to pull or push that selector shaft into the next range and then you get third
fourth gear and if you push it all the way the other way you get to reverse but in a five
speed you now have one two three four five and then reverse way over here so you need to move
this shaft farther to get to fifth gear and reverse which means this thing needs to move more
which means this thing needs to move more and the only way to make this move more is you have
to have it pivot higher up from the shaft yeah so this is a selector lever off of a five gear
linkage and here's where your rod would sit and then there's this ball piece that sits in there
and that's what pushes this back and forth and then when you twist the rod this thing twists
side to side and what i've done here is i've kind of duplicated this volkswagen sketch here
so that black hole is where the four speed ball stud would be and that piece of metal would be cut
off right there you'd only have this much metal and i think the problem that customers run into is
they've got a four speed vehicle they yank the four speed trans axle out and then they pick
up a transaxle at a junkyard or through a rebuild shop or someplace they get the transaxle and then
they can buy all these linkage pieces for a five speed but the one thing that doesn't come with the
trans axle is this piece here that was left in the donor vehicle so we get a lot of customers
that have one of these that need one of these and these parts are really hard to come by
so what we do is we make a kit that lets you do this so right here is our selector lever extension
so we make a piece that you can attach on here would fit in the hole left after you remove the
ball stud that would have been there and then it clamps on here we have a clamp and a bolt
and that holds this piece in place and then we give you new replacement ball stud
so you put your ball stud in the end you put your bolt and clamp in here
and that clamp then locks this extension piece onto the old part so to install this what you
need to do is if you grind this back you can see where the stud is there'll be a little separation
line around there and then just center punch that and drill it out it's about an eight millimeter or
5 16 inch drill bit just drill enough of that out to where you get through the weld penetration and
then you can pop that stud out and then bolt our extension on and you now have a five-speed
selector lever because if you don't have that you won't ever be able to adjust the linkage to
be able to get over to fifth gear you can either get to fifth gear or you can get to reverse but
you can't get both of them at the same time so we have a lot of frustrated customers calling
us up and asking if we can help them with that and yes we have a little piece you know like i
say you've got to do a little bit of work i'll cut in a picture showing how to drill this piece out
if you have a drill press that makes it easy but you could do this with a
cordless drill if you wanted to just need a good sharp metal cutting bit and a center punch
drill that hole out and then you bolt this thing on and now you have a five-speed selector lever
made out of a four speeds the other way you could do it if you have access to a welder
is you could just cut this piece off right here below the ball stud and then get a piece of
steel flat bar from a hardware store cut a piece that's that much longer it's roughly two inches
weld it in here and then you would then move your ball stud up so you could modify it yourself if
you have access to a band saw or a cut off wheel and then a welder so if you're doing a four speed
to five speed conversion we can help you out the other thing that you might run into with
a conversion like this is if you're going from an a2 or an a3 transaxle over to the a1 some of
these brackets that bolt on to the transaxle like this piece here is different this piece here is
different this bracket here is different and this bracket and bell crank or relay lever is different
so you need to keep all of these brackets and whatnot from your four speed these are bolted
onto the trans axle if you're getting a five speed from like an a2 jetta or golf something like that
it'll have different brackets attached there's generally the holes available but you need to grab
these pieces off your four speed and then move them on to the five speed in place of the a2 or
a3 brackets because they are different don't just yank the true speed and throw it away
you know make sure you get all of these little pieces off of it and if you're pulling a transaxle
out of a vehicle at a junkyard get that piece and you'll save yourself all this conversion
headache just grab that piece and you just loosen that bolt and pull this thing off we have shift
linkage parts we can replace this plane shift rod here with a weighted shift rod we have all metal
versions of these two pieces we have a replacement for this ball we have an extension here for the
relay shaft to give you a short throw set up if you need them we also can get you these
neoprene washers here i guess they kind of help seal up under the broad end here so that rod end
will clip over this ball and then that neoprene washer seals that up so we've got those pieces
and then you can see like this ball stud is starting to get a little bit rusty the
plating's worn off we can get your replacement ball studs they're the same diameter the same
length except they bolt on instead of weld on so we can get you that we have the shift rod
bearing yeah the early style we don't have the pre-1980 style that just had like a big grommet
there but we do have the 80 and later version which has the spherical rod bearing in there
so we can get you that piece we can get you the bushings for this we can get you the shift linkage
pieces pretty much rebuild everything and we can help you convert your four speed to a five speed
so we'll have a link to our web page in the video description and also in the end screen there's
a lot of information there but these types of conversions they're not just straight forward
it depends what do you have for pieces what are you missing you know what are you trying to do
we have explanations for all of this but we don't know ahead of time what your particular situation
is yeah hopefully that helps clear up the selector lever from for a four speed to five speed
conversion it's a simple little part if you can't cut and weld parts but you can drill holes we can
get you the part anyway i hope that helps clear this up yeah if that piece were still available
from volkswagen that would be part you could just order but i don't know if this is actually the
part number here or if that was just a conceptual sketch but if you have a four speed part we can
help you make it into a five speed so yeah if you have any questions contact information on
the web page you can find that link in the video description and as always thanks for watching