Captain Overachiever Strikes Again!

 I Hate Cars.

Actually this is all my own fault.

I've been working on the 06 TDI Beetle I picked up recently and managed to knock out a lot of work on it.

Timing Belt/Water Pump

Oil Changed

Replaced the Head Unit with a modern Single DIN Android Auto Head Unit (Power Akoustic CP71W)

Repaired The Inner Door Handles (DieselGeek Beetle Brace)

Fancy GTI/GLI Pedal Set

Fixed Both Cooling Fans 

A/C Works Again After Fixing The Fans (Wooh!!)

Polished/Cerakoted Headlights

Along with other things here and there.   Took the car on a couple of trips around town and it runs great.  The car isn't as much fun as my Wife's 02 Beetle Turbo, definitely slower but rides a lot softer.

Who cares about slow when I'm getting 45 mpg, right!

I'm almost ready to start using it to get to work, which was going to require just a few more things before I was comfortable using it for that.

A few years ago the shift linkage on my Wife's Beetle failed on me while I was using it on a shopping run.  Had to get it towed out of the WalMart parking lot to get it home.

Flatbed Ballin'

One of the bushings in the shift linkage disintegrated and basically left the car stuck where it was.  VW designed the shifter and shift cables as a assembly (Because of course, VW 😏), so most people have to get the assembly replaced.  

Being a cheap ass, I bought a Mk4 Bushing Kit from DieselGeek to replace all the problem areas and got them installed to get the car back on the road.  

So if I did it once, you'd think it would be easy to do it again, right?

You would think so, but you'd be wrong.

I Totally Fucked This Thing Up By The Numbers.

Since VW designed the Shifter Box as a sealed unit, getting at the parts with it installed in the car is difficult, but not impossible.  

You can drop the Shifter Box and Cables out from the car, and crack it open to change out the bushings on the workbench.  Which is what I should have done, this time.

With it still installed in the car, you have to use a 1 1/4in hole saw to drill a access hole in the housing to allow you to remove one of the bushings and install a new one.

This is where I "screwed the pooch". 

Since I've done it in the car before, and nothing bad happened I took a rather cavalier attitude towards drilling my access hole on my 06.

"Measure Twice, Cut Once", springs to mind.

Needless to say things did not go well, and it's boogered up but good.  I had to use a carbide burr to open up the hole where it was SUPPOSED to be.  

Behold The Fuckery!!

During the process  of opening up the hole even more, the burr kicked back and ended up breaking off part of the top of the shifter box, making my hack job around ten times worse. Probably structurally compromised.

So, I'm going to get another Shift Box with Cables and do it on the bench to avoid such ham handed fuckery in the future.

The worst part about it is, the majority of the bushings were FINE, aside from one that was easily accessible from the top.  So this whole debacle could have been avoided.  

Perfectly Fine, Besides The Easily Replaceable Bushing

Like I said, Captain Overachiever strikes again and this shitshow was all my fault.

I suck.