I spent a few hours rolling around under the van (new car creeper though, which has saved my back somewhat!), and have replaced the rear wear items in the shifter mech, as shown here (old ones obviously). it was getting pretty difficult to select 1st and reverse. All other gears were fine really (its a 5 speed), though a bit sludgy.

great! i thought, they were in pretty ropey shape. i had to seperate the front and rear shift rods obviously, to change the middle and rear shifyt rod bushings. I didnt renew anything at the front end, gear stick wise, though i did discconnect the front rod from the gearstick to swap the little plastic bushings arrowed here:

This front gearsttick mech needs a rebuild, but thats another day. the boot is ripped, and generally pretty crusty.

id marked the splines for seperating the front and read rods (length and twist), and they went back fine, though i cant 100% garuantee they are *exactly* as before. but the results arent perfect- no no no !
gears 2 to 5 are all great and feel quite a bit better. the stick rests in the 2-3 plane as it did before, and goes in and out of thios gears nicely. getting over to 1st and reverse is worse than before

moving across to the 1st/reverse plane, i can feel the detent ball and spring compress (tight, always was, but then that needs rebuilding), and can feel the gearstick bottom hits the side of the shift housing, but then its really hard to pull back into first, requring some force - pressing the stick down like you have to do for reverse helps a bit. sometimes it just wont pull back at all. I can imagine the gearstick shift guides are maybe hitting the shift housing guides maybe(?), and not letting it go back. a live video camera down underneath would be so useful, toi see whats going on

i know the rear bush housing carrier has a slotted hole for adjustment too. these were obviously disturbed when removed.

so question- being that 2-5 work well, does anyone know what the main problem might be?
great post here, but i coulndt find my situation (big thread):
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=97657
thanks in advance
