Urgent help needed: shift tower locked!

Finishing up a clutch job and fear I might have broken the little L-shaped black plastic locking mechanism for the 02Q.

The shift tower will not budge and I can't even get the whole mechanism out to inspect.

Any ideas? The L-lock moves in and out but seems a tad crooked. Tried everything while moving it, but the shaft that comes up from the tower will not rotate OR move up or down; it's completely locked with just a tad bit of wiggle.

Thanks for any help - I need to get on the road ASAP!

saucer---jim from dieselgeek has some great transmission youtube videos. try checking that out. sorry can not be of more assistance, good luck.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYsQrdjePK9ahtigmmxdh1g

Thanks for the links.

I think I've found everything related to this by now, though, haha. Someone else seemed to have this issue on another forum, but was able to easily pull the shift tower mechanism to remove the broken plastic, but I can't get it to come out more than a 1/4". I removed the two 13mm bolts on top, can lift and rotate, but it will not release...

I have a call in to Jim as well, but probably won't hear back until Monday.

you could try getting ahold of him via his contacts listed here.

http://forums.tdiclub.com/member.php?u=2968