It's not an overly tight fit, the bush doesn't grip the shaft but allows it to slide & turn as you select gears. However it shouldn't be loose. When I changed mine (i was stirring porridge), I changed the front bush, rear coupling & front selector shaft (the one with the cup). Also I had aquired a hurst style gear stick which went in at the same time. I suggest you have a combination of problems, check everything along the shaft(s) is tight especially the rear coupling & that it's bushes are not worn. May be worth getting under again whilst someone changes gears so you can see whats actually happening. Good luck. P.s. I inspected the old shaft & front bush against the new ones & strangely found no difference in them, so can't say what cured my problem, I like to believe it's the billet rear coupling from limebug but can't see it being that.
Thanks for the advice. I have checked out the rod to gearbox coupler, its an empi one and bushes are a bit worn, so I will get a quality replacement coupler. Meanwhile I remembered an old thread 'No gears' and took @Davipon 's advice to wrap ptfe tape around the donut bush groove to set it firmly in the plate. This did make the bush a tight fit and getting the rod in was tricky, but with a bit of grease and levering the rod forward from inside the van, the rod slid home nicely. Adjusted the plate inside the van and bolted down the gearstick. Took van out for a little test drive and all gears are now good and hardly any slop.
I have no problem with gear selection, but that's because my shifter is fitted with a very early example of the 'Bishop Fishtrousers' knob. This was designed & built in conjunction with Tim Bishop https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...ollapsed-could-it-sell-here-phil-1465348.html Plans, photographs and full construction details are available on request.
After sorting out front bush slop with PTFE as mentioned by @mgbman I found that my original gear lever had worn on the side of the bulge against the reverse stop plate so ended up dropping into reverse at scarily wrong times. Bought an EMPI trigger shift as that was in my price range and had all the usual issues with hitting the handbrake lever in 1st etc. Took some advice from a regular poster on Volkzone and pumped the tube full of grease, got my plumbing kit out and bent the lever back seemingly for miles with pipe bender. It didn't interfere any more and still worked well. After a year or so though started slipping back into reverse so suspect the stop plate inside has detached itself from weld to front or back plate. Will pull out and tack weld it back and hopefully resolve that.
My empi shifter likes to drop into reverse when looking for second,the lock out isn’t much use for some reason,something else for me to look at Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I think all the new donut bushes are a loose fit now. I did start looking at replacing it with a nylon bush, I never found the right size so was going to machine one to fit but never got round to it.
I saw the weld fix mentioned somewhere on the net as a common fault ( a while ago I must admit) will hopefully get on to it very soon.
