Notorious plastic ball
I'm holding the gear selector, which you can see has a plastic ball joint inside it. There is a rod that fits in the ball joint. Attached to the very front end of said rod is the shifter. These plastic ball joints are (in)famous for wearing down, which makes shifting more and more sloppy. Ludwig's was so worn down that I am pretty sure it had so much "slop" in it that it couldn't de-select 2nd gear (and at least one crotchety German VW mechanic agreed with me).
Broken mainshaft bearing cage
It would've been nice if that were all that I'd seen; the old guy gave me a fresh ball joint (for free), and replacement would've been a snap. Alas, I noticed the cracked piece the screwdriver is pointing to in the picture above. Knowing that it'd be a bad idea to reinstall the transmission with an obviously broken part, I went about seeing what it would take to replace this bearing.
What it takes is complete dis- and re-assembly of the transmission.
To be continued...
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