I am still waiting patiently for the materials
to finish the gear-lever-gaiter-finisher. So to kill some of the time I
switched my attention to the gear lever itself. When dismantling the parts car
early in the year I retrieved this gear lever, which turned out to be in pretty
good shape.
It looked a bit dirty, but there was hardly any
wear on the vital areas and it was undamaged. Even the gear lever knob looked
in in very good condition.
At the time the assembly was carefully wrapped
up and safely stored away for future use in a dry location. Sadly when I took
the lever from storage the gear lever knob turned out to be not so good
anymore. One way or another the gear pattern insert had started to delaminate. Definitely
not fit for use anymore!
But the rest of the knob was too good to discard.
Time for a little side project and experiment. But first the gear lever itself
got some attention, consisting of a good clean and de-grease, including
cleaning the M10x1,5 threads of both the gear lever and the knob. This was then
followed by a few coats of satin black paint from a rattle can. The slightly
damaged plastic cover of the lever’s steel rod was recovered with a piece of heat
shrink tubing. And finally the locking nut (not being a stressed part) was heated
till it was red hot and then dropped in a small jar containing engine oil. It smelled
awfully, but gave a nice black finish to the nut!
The final job was renovating the gear lever
knob. First the centre insert needed removing. This turned out very easy: drill
a small hole through its centre, stick a small screw driver in and lever it
out. Which looks like this. Quite surprised by the large recess underneath.
Remained the finishing touch; a new gear
pattern insert. As I couldn’t find a direct replacement online, I decided to
fabricate one from a piece of 3mm thick black anodized brushed aluminium. The
gear pattern was engraved mimicking the original font style, sort off. But well
pleased with the end result!
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