So I decided to upgrade my 88 Samurai shifter to the 12mm.  There was something broke that let the shifter rotate and hit the dash when trying for 5th.  Perfect time to upgrade. Being a newb I left it in 1st gear when I removed the shifter and shift tower.  After reassembly I thought I had it back together as it WAS shifting but it felt weird.  ... I'm guessing since first, second, third, etc. are a combination of gears/ gearing that I seriously screwed something up. "First" didn't have brute force it had before. And it didn't "rest" in neutral where going straight up was 3rd, down being 4th.  Going down three road was odd. 3rd felt lower geared than 2nd.  So have I really buggered it up or is the a way to fix it without pulling the tranny?

Well - one of the steps in removing the transmission is removing the shifter - and you have to reinstall it after you reinstall the transmission so I would guess that if what you did was put the shifter back incorrectly, then there would be a way to fix it without dropping the transmission.

If I recall correctly, once you pull the shift lever out and look down inside you'll see three "slots" on three shift rods - each rod can be in one of three positions, but only one can be away from the center or neutral position at any given time, so two of the slots will line up and the third will be either forward or backward from center - take a large screwdriver and move the "odd one" back so they line up and then reinstall the shift lever.

...look down inside you'll see three "slots" on three shift rods - each rod can be in one of three positions, but only one can be away from the center or neutral position at any given time, so two of the slots will line up and the third will be either forward or backward from center - take a large screwdriver and move the "odd one" back so they line up and then reinstall the shift lever.

Awesome tip! That's the info I needed. Thank you! It's now reinstalled and working beautifully.