So I got bored today after work and decided to do a little custom modifications on my gear select lever. At home depot I bought a pipe cutter, a bag of 10x32 oval head screws, and a 10x32 threader bit (I belive they call it a dye cutter bit or something like that).

After I got home and made a few marks I started to use the pipe cutter. I learned to use it in the 7th grade "tech ed" class (wood/metal shop basically). It was a very easy thing to do, it's just that twisting a little device for 45 minutes tends to get boring. After that I drilled the holes where they needed to be with a the proper drill bit and used a hand file to smooth out the edges from the drill and from pipe cutter. I went to thread the holes but I discovered something. Because there is a rod inside the lever you can't get the threading bit in there far enough to get any threads! I tried for about an hour to get that rod out. I eventually unhooked the shift linkage and took the whole assembly out, but I don't think the rod was going to come out. So I just decided to try and live with it b/c there is no going back now. After that, since I don't have a dremel, I hacksawed the rod down to size so the knob would fit over it. This was probably one of my biggest mistakes in the whole deal. It needs to be pretty precise. I did a decent job, but not as good as I liked. Also I discovered that the unpainted portion of the lever up at the top (which you never normally see b/c it's inside the knob) is thinner than down lower. I scraped off the paint using a butterfly knife I had lying around.........and then filed around the lever too. It took a little smacking but I was then able to get the knob to go down onto the lever. I used some oil too.

After it was all reassembled there were only two problems I really noticed. The first thing was the button on the shifter knob was hard to press, but after pressing it in and out for about 15 minutes it seem to kinda wear in. I think the rod inside just wore away at the plastic. The second thing I noticed was that b/c I didn't have the two screws in b/c the drilled holes aren't threaded, the knob moves a tiny bit. It doesn't move much b/c I had to force it on so hard, but it's still noticable.

I like the stance of it and the height. It's about 2 inches lower and feels better now when I have my hand resting on it.

I can get pictures if anyone wants them. It took me from about..7:30PM to 11:35PM, but I think it was a fun learning experience and well worth the time and effort. At least it's not a cheesey little bolt-on or replacement I bought off e-bay that would take 5 seconds to install.

My only question is what do you think I could do about threading those holes? I was thinking about maybe going and finding the toughest bolt I could find and putting my drill on the lowest torque setting and seeing if that would thread it. I don't know though, what do you guys think?