[Dave at Pelican Parts]

The 70-72 914s used a "tail shift" transmission; the linkage went all the way back to the rear cover of the transmission. The 73-76 914s used the "side shift" transmission; the linkage went into the main case of the transmission ahead of the intermediate plate.

You can convert the tail-shift into a side-shift, but it requires partially disassembling the transmission to do so. You need to transfer the shift rails and forks from the one case to the other. This is non-trivial surgery, so if you go that route be sure to do a lot of research into the process first!

It should be possible to change the gear shift linkage of your car to the earlier style, but it will require custom fabrication and will give you a worse shift linkage than the side-shift one.

It might even wind up being better to use the tail-shifter as a "parts box" to allow you to rebuild the side-shifter gearbox. "Dr. Evil" has a DVD (actually a 2 DVD set) that shows how to do the rebuild at home. I haven't yet done that job, but from the video it seems reasonably straight forward to do the job.

--DD