And it's not even in the car.

My MKIII W58 is sitting on the floor in my garage, and it's stuck in either 1st or 3rd gear.

It shifted great when I first picked it up. After doing a few different tailshaft/shifter variation combinations, I realized that I removed the OEM MKIII shifter while the transmission was still in gear (I think).

Now I can't get the shifter to line up with the collar in the tail shaft to leverage the transmission back into neutral.

Any ideas on what I can do? As of now the tail shaft is off, and I've swapped the MKIII collar for the MKIV to allow my MKIV shifter to fit.

 

Still trying to figure this out in my head. Have you simply hit the collar with a rubber mallet and tried forcing it back into neutral? Since its in a forward gear, the collar should be extended backwards so you can do that.

BTW, let me know when you get the package.

 

Doesn't budge.

I posted over in the MKIII section of SF too. Hopefully I can figure this out.

 

Bump.

Any ideas on how to free this transmission from gear? Currently I have the tail shaft removed, with access to all the gears, gadgets, and whizmos...