Neil,

  You may want to go back over all your trans and motor mounts again.  Make
sure you haven't induced some stress or strain into your driveline that may
be causing your growling noises.  I'd go around and loosen all the mounts
slightly...see if the nose of the tranny moves any, etc.  The whole
'package' you've been working with is pretty long..(No double meaning here,
grin) with the join between the tranny and the motor being right in the
center...
  You may have it "flexed" slightly out of line...
  Don Hanson

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 11:22 PM, neil n <musomuso@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3/21/10, neil n <musomuso@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks much. Think I found the problem.
>
>
> Nope. That part was fine.
>
> The bent guide pin was bent. I figure I reinstalled it angled down
> which lowered box on end of shift rod away from the shift lever. I
> assume this effectively reduced lateral movement of box on shift lever
> ball which would keep it from pushing the shift lever shaft in. And
> for some reason, when checking by hand, shift lever would push in but
> wouldn't move fore/aft to 1/2. Maybe I wasn't lining it up right. It
> worked on the bench though. I moved around a bit, then it worked.
>
> Drives fine but is slightly noisy in 1/2. A quiet growling under
> power. But it stays in gear, and no crunching between gears. Maybe
> thicker oil would help the noise.
>
> Thanks for the help everyone.
>
> Neil.
> --
> Neil Nicholson '81 VanaJetta 2.0 "Jaco"
>
> http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/
>
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/vanagons-with-vw-inline-4-cylinder-gas-engines
>