A rough guide of how to fit a MK7 Gear knob into your MK5 Golf!
Step one should be cover your entire front of your car with a dust sheet, blanket or whatever to protect your pride and joy from the madness that is to follow
For starters DO NOT purchase one of these from the more popular places such as Bold sport or TPS (I don't have trade discount so maybe that helps) I went onto German eBay and bought it in euros with shipping and it worked out around £100 cheaper then Boldsport.
so this may help you:
http://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_odkw=mk7+Gti+Schaltknauf&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR3.TRC2.A0.H0.Xgolf+vii+Gti+Schaltknauf.TRS0&_nkw=golf+vii+Gti+Schaltknauf&_sacat=0^Don't expect the sellers to speak English however, I used google translate to get me through it!
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#1. Here is the beast unboxed for the first time, I would wrap the end up now (please no jokes) as to avoid the the golf ball shape and nice aluminium getting scratched or damaged!
#2. Here is the easiest way I found of popping up the plastic fascia that the gear gaitor sits into
(Picture to come)
#3. Once the plastic fascia is removed then simply pull the gaitor and surround above the actually gear knob like so...
#4. Next there is a small metal ring(Not sure what its called) which you need to prize off, the method for doing this which I used was a size 6 terminal screwdriver and I put it in the ring and wiggled it left and right until the ring releases the pressure and moves up towards the gear knob itself, (Basically it holds it in place by pushing down to clamp it in) Once the ring has released pressure you need to physically pull the gear knob fixtures off of the shaft in an upward motion - mine took a considerable amount of force to remove it.
^i took this picture on my girlfriends brothers vw lupo as I fitted my old mk5 knob into his lupo so I thought I'd take this picture as the clips are the same on them all!
#5. You should then be left with this, and this means you can now leave your car for the majority of the job :) Cue the kettle.
#6. Next you need to remove the base from the gaiter which is done by pressing the x8 or so clips in, finger pressure I found was enough for this.
#7. once removed, keep safe as you will be needing it again later on.
#8. Now for the fun bit, you will need a set of tools, I used a Christmas cracker style screwdriver with a tiny flat head insert on it, and a staple remover (alternative a needle nose set of pliers would work)
#9. An inside shot of the staples of the MK5 gaiter base, showing the bent over staples which will need straightening to remove
10#. Exterior shot of the staples of the MK5 gaiter base. If I remember rightly there is about 420 million staples in the MK5 base.
11#. Just showing the fiddly method of removing the staples, once this is done, prize them slightly away from the exterior also and then use the staple remover and they should come out fairly easy but with a fair amount of force also!
12#. Once all the staples have been removed and the gaiter is free from the base I marked the side which faces the dashboard on the base as I didn't want to mount the gear stick backwards after all this effort, you may be more confident then myself but I found this worked for me.
13#. Now the MK5 gaiter base is free from its leathery prison, Keep it somewhere safe and in my case let the tippex dry and move onto removing the MK7 gaiter from its base - using exactly the same method shown above - This one is a lot easier as their is less staples and they are larger. Don't stab your self with either the screw driver or the staples though, that would be stupid.
14#. Once all the staples are removed and you are ready to remove the leather from the base make sure you unhook these, are they are different from the MK5 and you wouldn't want to tear it after all that work! There is 4, 1 in each corner.
15#. The re-fitting of the MK7 leather gaiter to the MK5 base is without a doubt the most frustrating part of this mod, and my staple gun was shockingly bad at penetrating the MK5 base's thick plastic - So after many swear words a few staples later and 3 coffee breaks I gave up... I resorted to the quite frankly amazing "Gorilla Glue" It's an extremely effective glue and it worked a miracle for me today.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gorilla-1044201-Glue-60ml/dp/B001W030CW
16#. Make sure you trim your gaiter to size as its slightly oversize in shape as it obviously isn't designed for the MK5 Base, I used the slit method to get it hug the corners well. Once your happy with the fitment, proceed to Fix your leather to the base - Fix being staples or Glue in this case - Gorilla glue was left for 10 minutes and was rock solid so I persisted with this. (Bare in mind I tried the glue on the MK7 base with the MK5 gaiter just to try if it was a good enough fixing and I was very impressed)
* I will pause now to say the cutting of the shaft is possibly the easiest bit of this mod, and I wouldn't feel to much anxiety about doing it - Providing you have the correct tools and have covered your car well with protection you really can't get this too wrong. *
17#. I looked online at how much people usually cut off as I was nervous about getting it wrong, however the generally answer was between 1-2 inches, which is vague which led me to believe its not too critical, and it isn't.
You can gauge how much you need to get off and even mark it but turning the newly fitted MK7 gear knob and base inside out and physically fitting it onto the shaft and you can see its a good inch or 2 too high, easy!
18#. Note on picture 17 you will see I had already cut it before cutting it at the correct measurement, this was a panic cut by myself and my first cut wasn't anywhere near as much as it needed to be (Better not enough then too much!) where the blade sits in this picture you can roughly gauge how much I needed to take off.
19#. By this stage you have gone past the point of no return, and will now need to grind/ file the Left hand side of the shaft to make it a flat angle, so the gear stick will not twist or have any play when it is fitted. I used an abrasive disc in a drill at low speed to wear it down then finished it off with a flat iron file.
20#. Now you can keep grinding or filing as you wish and try the new MK7 knob every couple of minutes to gauge how much you need to take off, the flatter it gets you will notice less play and twisting in the knob.
^I may have grinded some more off after this picture to get it fit perfectly but I can't quite remember!
21#. I personally re-used the old metal ring from the MK5 (See #4.) on the new knob as I found it was a much tighter fit and that suited me more, I understand both will work fine and its probably a preference thing more then anything else.
22#. The finished product after using the same steps you used to remove the old knob and base, do it in reverse and you will end up with something like...
^I RE-fitted slightly after as I wasn't totally happy with the leather fitment, which is now fixed.
