Rookie question - shifter adjustment

[2Dogs]

On my last outing, I was having trouble finding 4th gear. My hand kept hitting the bodywork when I went for fourth. I eventually found it by flat palming the shifter and pushing it into gear. I want to adjust the shifter inboard just a bit so that I have room for my hand.

So, what I did was loosen the friction collar around the shaft that comes out of the transaxle and rotate the collar a little. This pulled the shift handle inboard. It also twisted the linkage a little.

My question, is that the correct way to adjust the shift handle or did I create an issue? I'll give it a test ride tomorrow and try not to anger the neighbors. It felt ok, but I didn't want to keep shifting the gears while the car was just sitting.

[BLS]

You have to adjust it someway. Either as you did it or by some other point that moves the shifter In a bit. I think your adjustment is fine.

[Bruce Livermore]

On my Mysterian, there is an easier way to adjust this and it also is used to adjust the for/aft position of the shifter to get it just where you want it. There is a threaded section of the shift linkage with a jam/lock nut that secures it where desired. To adjust the left/right position of the shifter you just loosen the lock nut and rotate the shifter to where you want it and then retighten the jam nut. It takes a few tries because it's a bit tricky to hold everything in exactly the right place as you tighten the jam nut. Adjusting the fore/aft position requires a bit more disassembly.

Because my car came with this feature (thanks Kurt) I chose to use the OEM, VW tapered set screw to secure the linkage to the hockey stick at the back. It assembles the same every time, no muss no fuss. This makes setting the shifter position a one time process so it doesn't have to be messed with every time you swap gearboxes. Where I live easy trans swapping is important since I've always needed to use both long and short boxes each season with a few swaps per year.

One thing to check whenever you are adjusting the shifter position at the hockey stick: make sure that the shifter linkage has a bit of clearance to the transmission housing when fully engaging 1st and 3rd or it might not fully engage those gears. This might cause it to pop out of gear while driving and every time it does that it wears things out a bit in the trans so the problem just gets worse and worse once it start to happen.

YMMV