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Make the gear knob leather look like new


hikipuk

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After 14 years of gear abusing :), my gear knob leather was looking pretty tired.

Searcing ebay after a replacement was an absolute pain because they go for ridiculous prices. A couple gear knobs which were not in perfect condition sold for £80 and some actually sold for £180.

I knew the guys from Top Gaiter had a leather replacement in the store and bought it.

It's not easy and my fingers now feel like they have been stretched. I takes a bit of puling and growling to get the thing over the knob but is worth it.

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Old one looked very tired and felt like plastic.

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New leather definitely looks fresh and smells good ( you know what I mean :) nothing like the smell of fresh leather)

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The plastic had a lot of scratches and I decided to respray it

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a bit weird this image, but you get the point :)

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And it's in (took me about 5 hours to stretch the leather to fit)

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Decided to make it a little bit darker

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Getting there

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And it's done

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Old and new. The new leather looks great compared to the old hardened and scratched one

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I will take more images during day ( I really hate daylight saving, 5:30 and is dark )

Well, let me know what you guys think. If anybody is interested in doing this I can give more details, but I thought you will all be bored to death after the length of this post.

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Splendid job, what paint did you use for the plastic?

I have used a can of sliver spray from Hallfords. I think mine was Audi silver metal. I wanted a bit darker and that was the closest to my liking :)

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Great job.

How easy is it to remove the knob from the car?

...you just try pulling any Porsche driver out of their car... smash yer face in!

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So 7 fasteners to hold a brake disc on, 11 screws to hold the upper leather trim around the dials...and NONE for the gear lever - who says Germans over engineer things ??!! :sad01_anim:

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Very tidy job. Looks good. You can get leather softening liquid which softens and allows the leather to stretch (for boots/shoes etc). Do you think that would have made things easier?

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That is really handy work there. Didn't even know you could take it apart like that without damaging the shift knob. Good job! I went the lazy route, and just purchased a 987 knob to install...

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That is really handy work there. Didn't even know you could take it apart like that without damaging the shift knob. Good job! I went the lazy route, and just purchased a 987 knob to install...

Did you keep your old one? You could re-form it now you know how, and sell the 987 on!

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I sold my old one already. Have the 987 one on now, but also switch to the below aluminum/leather one once in while when I get bored of the 987 knob.

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  • 6 months later...

Not seen this before, off to the 'How to' with it!

 

:-)

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On ‎01‎/‎11‎/‎2015 at 11:22 AM, hikipuk said:

Easy, just pull the gear up and is out

Are you talking about the leather gaiter?  I have tried to remove mine from a 987.1 to lubricate the linkage underneath, but the clips retaining it are tight. How exactly do you release the leather gaiter to expose the linkage. Thanks.

  

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  • 2 years later...

Decided to refurb the plasstic on the gearshift of my 986, this post really helped! With Regards to removing the gearshift and potential black eye! I did as suggested, opened the roof and both doors, but instead of pulling straight up, put the gearbox into second, and twisted slightly and pulled towards my chest, surprisingly the lever popped off with little effort! Now to paint the plastic part and give the leather a good old clean, which is actually in pretty good nick. 

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  • 6 months later...

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