Gear knob replacement / modification.

[clarkey1984]

Hi all, the worn away edge on my gear knob has annoyed me for ages, the one on the SE was no better and I hate the wood anyway, plus the piano black ones are few and far between, and are pretty expensive when they do occasionally come up, so I bought a generic universal one off eBay.

After the jiggery-pokery that's involved with removing the old one, I realised that the gaiter is reliant on the bottom section of the original knob to stay in position, so after pondering it for a minute I decided that some hacksaw action was required.

With the bottom clippy section removed i refitted the gaiter, then the arrangement of parts including my original knob offcut onto the shaft, clipped it all together and that was that, although that was a mistake really, because once everything's clipped in there's then no way back, because the now chopped off base of the old knob is in position with nothing to pull on anymore.

What I should have done was mark the position on the shaft first so I know where the gaiter sits exactly but without clipping it in, then fit the knob at the correct height, then clip the gaiter on, doing it the way I have means that there's a 5mm or so gap between the top of the gaiter and the top of the new knob, where I had to leave enough room to tighten the grub screws and then spin the bottom chrome colour cover on, although I can live with the small gap, it's not overly noticeable.