<VV> Shifting (shifty?) saga -- includes a request for advice

[Kent Sullivan]

Hi,

Thought folks might be interested in a problem that Jim Brossard and I
remedied on my yellow Corsa convertible this weekend. The symptom was that
third gear was hard to get into smoothly most of the time. Sometimes it
shifted normally but most times it wanted to grind.

I initially thought a synchro might be going bad but we didn't think that
was terribly likely since the transmission had been rebuilt about 10k miles
ago and second gear usually goes before third and double-clutching did not
always help.

So, we put the car up on the lift and had a look. We found a bunch of stuff
out of order and fixing most of the issues made the problem disappear, so
there is definitely not a bad synchro. Here's what we found wrong:

1) Worn shift coupler -- causing sloppiness

2) Worn shift tube bushings -- more sloppiness

3) Bent shift stabilizer bracket --  which caused the shift stabilizer rod
to want to point downward from horizontal, which, when hooked to the shift
tube, caused it to have a lot of downward tension

4) Stretched clutch cable -- to the point that the clutch cross shaft was
wearing a groove in the shift stabilizer bracket behind it

5) Worn-out rear cross member bushings and transmission mounts -- causing
the transmission to drop down a bit from horizontal

6) Worn clutch swivel -- more sloppiness

We fixed all except #5 and #6. Next project is to replace them too (rear
cross member bushings and transmission mounts and ). We partially fixed the
worn swivel by flipping it over since the wear was all on the trailing edge.

REQUEST FOR ADVICE
==================

Can the rear cross member bushings and the transmission mounts be replaced
safely with the cross member in the car? I have a lift (four-wheel). We are
thinking that we can lower the transaxle enough and support it with a bottle
jack (bottle jack rests on cross-wise jacking tray that comes with lift).

If so, when lowering the transaxle, what is the list of things that need to
be disconnected?

1) Starter cable

2) Gas line

3) Perimeter seal?

4) Anything else?

Thanks!