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| Short Shifter |
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Ahhh, my old trust stock shifter. It is time to die. The very first thing you have to do it get the shift knob off. To do this, all you have to do it pull straight up on the knob. Just fucking pull until it comes off. It's not very scientific. The you'll have to decide how much of the shaft you want to take off. Many people take off between 2 and 3 inches. I took off 2, since I can always take off MORE, but you can't easily add it BACK ON. To get the shifter boot, the leather covering the shifter shaft, down to where you want to cut, you have to rotate it back and forth and push down at the same time. It'll move.
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Now, get a GOOD Dremel rotary tool (or a hacksaw, I guess, but I used a Dremel) and start cutting where you feel is a good spot. It is a good idea to use your other hand to apply pressure to the top of the shaft, as you cut, in a direction opposite to the pushing force you give through the Dremel. This counter-pressure markedly speeds up the cutting proccess. You want to use a Dremel that can go at least 35,000 RPM, and you want to one of the bits called a cutting wheel. It will be fairly obvious which type of Dremel bit this is when you get the package, don't worry. Now, some words of CAUTION!!! WEAR EYE PROTECTION WHEN YOU USE THE DREMEL. YOU WILL FUCK YOURSELF UP BADLY IF YOU DO NOT. THERE ARE HOT METAL SHAVINGS FLYING EVERYWHERE AS YOU CUT, AND THE BITS BREAK AND WHATNOT. YOU DO NOT WANT THAT IN YOUR EYE. WEAR EYE PROTECTION!! LOOK, EVEN THE COOL KIDS WEAR THEM!!!! This is what my leg looked like after cutting for a while. That black shit is metal. I was picking it out of my nose in chunks the day after I did the cutting, too. Use eye protection and try to ventilate your area as well as you can. Breathing that stuff in can't be good. Another word of caution: GET A GOOOOOD DREMEL TOOL. I got a shitty one at first and this picture was the best I could do. DO NOT get a cordless model. DO NOT get a model with less than 35,000 RPM. If your Dremel has these two features, you should be fine.
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Ok, so the next morning I went and returned my piece-of-shit Dremel and got a good one. After a long while of cutting, I was finally victorious, as shown here. After this picture was taken, I ground down probably another 1/4 inch using other sanding and grinding bits.
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The next step is to take off the console and remove a piece of the shifter boot assembly. The console is held in the car by four bolts. Two of them are located near the back of the console, and are under a cover. You have to pry the cover off and unscrew these bolts. These are the bolts shown in the photo. The other two are in a strange place. If you look at the panel that would be right to the left of the passenger's left shin, you may notice that it is separate from the rest. This panel must be removed by pulling in the direction of the passenger side door on the end of the panel that is closest to the firewall (towards the front of the car). After the velcro strip comes loose, just pull it off. There is an equivalent panel on the driver's side. Take that off, too. You will see a screw near the bottom right corner of the hole where the panel used to be (on the driver's side...bottom left on the passenger's side). Remove these two screws. Now, the console should be able to be lifted up a bit, but you will feel resistance to lifting it completely out of the car. What's holding it down are the wires attached to the light in the cup holders and the cigarette lighter. If you push up on the bottom of the cup holder tray, it will pop out of the console, and you will see where the wires attach. Just fiddle with the connector until it comes out. You'll figure it out. To disconnect the cigarette lighter, you have to disconnect another light, much like the one in the cup holder, as well as the cigarette lighter itself. To disconnect the lighter, just kind of wiggle and pull on the U-shaped thing connected to the back of the lighter. It will make more sense when you see it, trust me.
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Now, lift the entire console out of the car and put it aside. Next, remove the shifter boot by pulling up on the side that is toward the front of the car. It will eventually pop up and you can now pull it off the shifter shaft. After you have it off the shaft, put your hands up inside it (and/or look inside) and you'll feel two plastic plates. Break them off. They will keep the shift boot up too high to mount the new shift knob. Now, just do everything you did to take the console apart, but backwards. It's not too hard.
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Now, you can either ram the old knob back on the shaft, or you can go get an aftermarket one. I did the latter, since after the failure with the first Dremel, I stuck the old knob back on the shaft to make it easier to drive temporarily. However, unlike the first time I tried to pull the knob off, this time, due to the cutting I'd done the night before, the knob was STUCK on there. NO WAY IN HELL was it coming off. So I just cut it to pieces to rip it of again. Check it out. I guess that's the end of THAT. I don't know how all knobs work, but mine had a plastic sleve that fit over the shaft, and the knob went over the sleeve and had bolts that went through it and pressed against the sleeve, holding them together. I didn't use the sleeve, though. I used electrical tape, since even the biggest sleeve was too small for my shaft.....I have that problem a lot, you know.....ANYWAY, this is the finished product. I like the feel, and the ergonomics of the knob are nice. Try this shit out. See what happens.
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