New Shiny Bits!

Feeling a bit flush I went and bought a Leven Technology alloy gear lever surround, some people think they look a bit 'Max Power' but I'm very happy with the results, as with other Leven goodies, I think it makes the interior look a little tidier. So now for the fitting, ok it's pretty straight forward but a bit fiddly...

First pull the gear lever gaiter out from between the transmission tunnel and console, and put the top alloy surround over and on the gaiter. Holding the surround down in place I selected each gear in turn making sure there was enough fabric spare to allow movement, when I was happy that I could still hit all the gears I took a bradawl and made the seven holes required, take time over this step as my fabric was quite stiff so it was quite difficult to trap under the surround when test changing the gears:


Next was to test fit the surround by putting the bottom plate underneath the gaiter fabric and loosely fixing the top surround on with the bolts, I again tested that I could locate all gears easily:


Now to put the whole thing together, I disassembled the surround and removed the covers on all the sticky pads on the lower plate, now bolt the whole thing back together to make a tight seal so the fabric sticks to the bottom plate:


Nearly done, time to trim the excess fabric, I did this with scissors, easy enough! I suppose you could leave all the material on, as it will be hidden in the console but in the interest in saving weight in the car off it came!


After waiting a few hours to let the fabric bond to the bottom plate properly it was time to do the final fit. With my car I had to drill holes into the console, as the bolts wouldn't fit on the inside of the original gear lever opening, this was done carefully with a hand drill and a 4.5mm bit. The first stage of the final fit was to maneuver the bottom plate through and under the gear lever opening, it's a bit of a squeeze but is possible, bolting down the top alloy surround was helped greatly when I found out I could reach and hold the bottom plate by putting my hand through the handbrake opening :) Getting the two bottom bolts in made it a whole lot easier to locate the remaining bolts.

After tightening all the bolts it was job done I think it looks quite good, well worth all the swearing and sweat!!

Comments

andy said…
hi woody, i've bought a leven stalks pack in alloy but can't for the life of me figure out how you take off the old ford plastic units. any advice for a non mechanic on how do get them off? best regards andy
7:45 pm
andy said…
sorry woody forgot to put if you have any comment to my post on leven stalks pack can send it to apotts@synseal.com www.synseal.co.uk
7:46 pm
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