Gear Shift Centering spring

[rbalc1]

The other day I decided to investigate why there was so much movement in the gear shift
I firstly pushed up the surrounding plastic trim, then pushed the the shift boot upwards out of the trim by undoing the clips ( I broke two)
I then discovered a broken spring which can be seen below (the centering spring)
this pulls the gear stick back to center and applies spring force in all gears






I then compared to a polo club which is how the spring should look



I sourced the spring from a vw dealer today and cant seem to work out how to change it.
I am thinking I will need to drop the linkage box which would mean removing the exhaust
does anyone have any experience on replacing this?


Thanks

[h100vw]

Never seen it done but dropping the exhaust is probably the first step.

[rbalc1]

Is dropping the exhaust a particularly difficult job?

[h100vw]

You might get away with splitting it after the Cat. It swing down a fair bit on the flexy joint. Never done it as an isolated job to access the gear shifter.

[rbalc1]

Does anyone have access to diagrams of how the shifter comes apart?

there appears to be a torx screw on the left hand side going into the cylinder the spring is on, but it is very tight and feels like i will strip the head.
i removed the plastic plug and retaining pin holding the right hand side.

EDIT: sourced diagram
#27 is very stubborn to remove. Will have another go tonight

EDIT 2: Success! the t25 screwdriver I was using was not accurate enough and was starting to strip the head. A better torx screw driver fixed that