TS Transaxle gear lever problems

[GTVeloce]

Guys
I have had the TS transaxle in my GTV for a while now and love it. I fixed the issue of the linkages and modified the gear selector rod to be the correct length but could never get the correct adjustment of the gear lever to give me all gears properly. i.e. 1 to 5 would be ok but reverse would pop out or vice-versa. I recently discovered the TS gear lever has a longer lower portion which should give the necessary range of motion for all gears but have hit a snag installing it. It sits low enough that the gear selector rod hits the cross car chassis rail beneath the middle doughnut before it can engage with the gear lever 
Has anyone fixed this? As I see it I could modify the rod again (from experience is a massive headache!) or I might get enough drop by cutting a small wedge out of the top of the chassis rail hopefully without weakening it.
Thanks

[alfagtv152]

Hi there,
I would not go cutting the chassis rail at all.There are many and varied ways to modify the gear linkage but if you want a longer stick on the bottom there are 2 ways I accommodate this,#1 is to bend the end of the transfer bar down where it is past the chassis and joining the gear stick.#2 and my preferred is to add small sections of steel down each side of the flats where the bolt goes through so that you can pick up the stick pivot without lowering the bar IE if you drop your stick 10mm,extend the flats down another 10mm to match.
You don't need different gear sticks,you can heat the gear stick(ball) you have and drive it down through the ball,position it to where you want it and tack it in place on the bottom.I can't remember the exact measurement(15/20mm) at the moment but I normally just move the stick out of the splines(down) and then tack it with no splines visable.It wont get better and better if you make it much longer and it doesn't really improve the gate side to side but I like it.You could probably find a thread existing on this.
Cheers
Andrew