A3 Short shifter (real or fake?)

I saw a tutorial that made a short shifter by just cutting the rod a bit shorter and rethreading it. Would it work as well as taking the whole piece out and making one? Would it work at all?

http://faculty.ccp.edu/faculty/dreed/Campingart/jettatech/cutshifter/index.htm

I did this to my Mk3 VR6 , but I did not rethread it. My Momo knob has setscrews, and holds really tight. And, I think I cut off a lot more than he did.

For the boot, cut the knob off the stock one, turned the end inside out, and zip-tied it to the shaft.


It works well enough. It does shorten the throw as the link shows... and it makes the knob sit lower (my goal), but you also increase effort as a result. I don't think non-VR6 Mk3's have cable shifters, so the loss of leverage might not be what you're looking for.

Shortening the shift rod isn't the proper way to shorten throw. Changing the pivot points for which the shifter has to move is the proper way. All the real short shifters are pretty simply made too. You just need access to a basic welder.

On VR6's and TDI's of the MK3 you have cable shifters. The 2.0l is the only one that came with the old 020 tranny which uses linkage. The real shifters move the pivot point of the actual shifter rod up about .5 to 1". To do this yourself you just need to cut the pivot point along with the metal it is connected too and move it up, re-weld it at it's higher position, then fill in the gap below it with some steel plate. This is how the old Diesel Geek shifter was made if I recall correctly. Oh yeah, lastly you need to re-notch the shift rod for the change position. This gives you just about the same leverage since you aren't removing any material and you are just moving it to the other side of the shifter giving your shift knob end a shorter throw and the other end a longer throw.

Does anybody make them for a price? I do not feel confident enough to do it myself. I will provide the core.

Dieselgeek quit making them over 1 year ago.

The B&M part is crap, from what I've read.

Perhaps if you can get >25 sales line up, he may be willing to make another production run. Send a PM to corrado TDI.

Tony

I plan on doing what I said above to mine in the next week or so. If mine comes out nice I'll do it for a fee for people. I wouldn't mind. The B&M shifter is actually a nice shifter. I had one. Yes it did break but they replaced it since they have warranties on their shifters and the one I got back was different. It was beefier than my previous version. They made the part that broke on mine thicker, so that it wouldn't break! It does make things pretty notchy but I will stand by their stuff even though mine broke, but like I said the one they sent back to me for free was beefier.

D_Bat said:

I plan on doing what I said above to mine in the next week or so. If mine comes out nice I'll do it for a fee for people. I wouldn't mind. The B&M shifter is actually a nice shifter. I had one. Yes it did break but they replaced it since they have warranties on their shifters and the one I got back was different. It was beefier than my previous version. They made the part that broke on mine thicker, so that it wouldn't break! It does make things pretty notchy but I will stand by their stuff even though mine broke, but like I said the one they sent back to me for free was beefier.

Click to expand...

I would like a shorter shifter