MK 4 Fiesta Gearchange Problem

[mikdys]

First off, the 3/4 gear bias spring broke so that the gearlever felt "loose" and it was not held towards the 3/4 "gate". I could live with this. The problem now is the change has got much worse and the "gate" won't engage on the first attempt into 2/3/4 and needs several tries (losing maybe 20mph in the process!).

My question is will this be a fault in the remote gear linkage (I feel confident I could fix this but I don't want to spend hours removing and refitting it to find its not the problem)or within the gearbox (no confidence here - fear of a big bill!)?

Anyone any ideas?