Replacement clear cover over gear pattern on top of mk2 gear knob

[muttley]

I'm on a bit of a roll at the moment sorting out all the little things that have been waiting for me to work up the enthusiasm to do.

One of these is the original gear knob. Now I like this, and don't want to change it. But before I got the car, the clear plastic cover that sits over the top of the gear selector disc has split an now there's only half of it on there. It looks a bit dodgy but also is dead sharp and if I forget about it I get some nice little slices across my palm when I change gear.

I know I won't be able to get a new disc, after all people either want a gearknob or they don't, right?

I am thinking of getting hold of some clear perspex and cutting a disc to be a push fit for the diameter of the knob. Only problem here is that I haven't worked with perspex since I left school over 20 years ago and more importantly, the original disc has a lip that actually clicks into the recessed bit on the knob itself that I won't be able to replicate with perspex and of course it's likely to be significantly thicker so may stand above the top of the knob.

Any ideas on here for me? I could get hold of another knob but as they seem to be at least £20 it seems a bit daft when I should be able to sort it with a bit of ingenuity and some graft.

[muttley]

I managed to get a spare few minutes this afternoon to sort this. I got a sheet of perspex from a local craft shop, £5.99 for a piece about A4 size. I don't know how good a price that is but I needed to get some and hadn't got time to research it. This is the bit that was causing the problem.



I cut a square out and used my bench grinder to work it into the correct circumference, it worked out very well.


The only problem was that the gear layout disc was a lot thicker than I had remembered and the original cover was quite convex so that it didn't matter that the disc sat proud of the top of the golf ball knob.


Now though I was trying to put a flat piece of perspex over the top so I got out a trusty chisel and took the thickness of the disc out of the inside of the knob.


I had worked the perspex to be just a little bigger than the top shoulders of the knob so it sits in there tightly and job done. It's far from perfect but it's good enough for me and at least the car won't attack me every time I change gear now!

[muttley]

On to the mark 2 gearknob cover, the layout disc moved around too much so I've hot glued it into position. Totally sorted now and I've now put the aftermarket 16v style rear lights on and changed  the speakers for JBL ones in the original locations so it's just about spot on now in terms of what I wanted to do to it.