I was given a 81 Vanagon, have had a few posts here, never had a van before. I had not realised that the tranny was hinged in the front and lowered the engine to be rebuilt, well I ended up not being able to shift the van because I pulled off the bushing off in shifter rod linkage. This is a dealer only item at a whopping 2 dollars and 30 cents plus a few days to order.
Hope this info helps someone else before they spent a hour under a van trying to figure out why it wont shift. Sometimes Beetles are so much more fun to work on.....