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Thanks, Gordon.

I tried to engage second gear today getting on the freeway. 2nd didn't engage, but I did get 3rd and 4th. Later, I got off the freeway, engaged 1st, but no other gears engaged. The shifter felt very loose, and the car was stuck in 1st gear. I pulled the inspection cover, and the shifter was moving the shift rod. Still, the car was locked in 1st gear. When I got home, I separated the the coupler from the shift rod, and the hockey stick spun freely. I am supposing that the hockey stick is broken off inside the nosecone, and I have to pull the transaxle?
Bob:

Back in the days when Speedies Car Hop Drive-in was still on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester, MA., and people would race other cars between stop lights (they were every 300 yards or so), those weeknight racers used to see a lot of broken hockey sticks.

Some guys used to build the stick up with lots of weld at the weak point and that sometimes worked, but the best one I've seen is the one from Berg, although you don't see a lot of the beefy ones any more. People have become more sedate...
Well, I have owned two different VW's over the years, and both have had broken hockey sticks. The Speedster in its former life as a Bug, 15 or so years ago, was one of those cars with a broken hockey stick.

Maybe it is my "spirited" driving style that is causing the breakage!

I guess I should have turned it into a Spyder instead. Then at least I wouldn't have to yank everything out to replace it.
Does anybody "speed shift" the VW box? I used to do that with the old Muncie 4 speeds, but I'm more "sedate" now.

Speed shift = right foot flat on the floor. Pre-load the gear shift knob (engine torque on the engaged gears will not let it slip out of gear until you engage the clutch). Slam your foot onto the clutch and off again as fast as you can. You should be in the next gear when clutch re-engages. Through it all, your right foot remains flat on the floor. Success is invigorating. Lack of success can be deflating AND expensive.
Had a new Firebird (first new car I owned) back in 69. I was good at speed shifting, brother wasn't. He missed a shift, bent the shift linkgage, and the car was stuck in second gear. Still under warrenty so the dealership sent someone out to drive it back. Didn't let brother drive it after that! Also what is the hockey stick on a vw? The shifter itself???
The "Hockey Stick" in a VW tranny is the shift actuator which is directly attached to the far end of your shifter linkage. When you move your shift lever left-right, the hockey stick rotates, When you pull your shifter front-back the hockey stick moves in and out at the tranny.

The working end of the hockey stick is roughly the size of one's pinky finger. Not a lot of metal there, and it has a 90 degree bend at the end (at the weakest point). It looks like a hockey stick, or maybe your foot, it you're not Canadian, eh?

When it is moved back and forth in a rotational way (when you move the shift lever left to right) the working end slips between two tines of a "fork" coming from the tranny gear set, and the fork is also at 90 degrees to it's attached shaft. There are three of those forks; 1(push in)&2(pull out), 3(in)&4(out) and reverse(out).

I believe that clever Ferdinand Porsche purposely made the hockey stick the weaker link because you can change it with the simple removal/replacement of the tranny nose cone - 15 minutes, once the tranny is out on the floor, and that allows time for a potty break.

If you beef up the hockey stick, you also should be running reinforced (usually with weld) actuators because they are the next to go, but there's not a lot of room to reinforce them. If one of THOSE break, then you'll need a whole tranny tear-down to replace them. LOTS of time and LOTS of money.

So that's why you don't see a lot of people running beefier hockey sticks. All you're doing is moving the next break further inside the tranny.

Yes, you can "power shift" a VW tranny as Dave described - the post 1965 will shift better than the pre-1965 versions (better synchro action on the pre-load) but NONE of them like it much. Remember that the case is Aluminum and has a tendency to try to sideways-shift the gear sets to a position slightly outside of the case when over stressed (as they would be with full power shifts). As stock, they're designed for moderate speed, deliberate and power-off shifts, period. I've had maybe 20 or more VW based cars, and some of them were class-winner autocross racers. Never broke a hockey stick.

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