Well this little project turned out to take WAY longer than expected, mostly due to the misinformation I was going by!  Most posts here and on fb were pretty light on info (or that it was easy, yea, easy when you know how! Lol), and just linked to youtube vids for golfs, so for prosperity here’s a little write up on – how to remove gear knob on a mk3.5 manual.

1. Removing the boot surround from the console. 
Every video made it look so simple, but this is where I wasted most of my time, just press down on the boot to find the tabs from the surround and lift it up.  Nope, nearly 30min of pressing, twisting and gently prying with pry tools (i know how fragile the chrome is so I didn’t want to put any real force on to it) and I had gotten no where!  I even tried removing the top plate surround to get a little more grip on the front side, still didn’t work, finally I took a pry tool and wedged it between the boot material and the chrome surround, the boot side flexed way more than the chrome side which gave the surround enough space to just pop out!  I couldn’t believe it! So simple!  Looking at the prongs of the chrome surround it was very obvious why no amount of pressing was working – a) the prongs werent long with the “latch” facing backwards like in the golf and b) the support for the boot (black part) was in the way of the chrome surround and about 1cm away!  So basically I wasnt pushing on the latch instead, just locking the surround in more lol  after that it was mostly the same as the videos.
The black surround for the boot is held in by 4 tabs, one on each side

 

2. Removing the knob and boot. 
Only one video I found didn’t say to cut the cinch ring that holds the knob on, every other said to cut it.  Im all for reusing existing parts so I just took a screwdriver and loosened it a little till the knob could spin, then pulled the whole thing off.  Once off, you can squeeze the 4 prongs together and take the ring off.

 

3. Remove the knob from the boot.
The knob is held onto the boot collar by 3 prongs, I flared these out with a few screwdrivers then used another screwdriver on the knob side to pry the two pieces apart.  Once you get one prong past the notch you can just grip the collar with your fingers and use your thumbs to push the knob the rest of the way out.

 

4. Fitting new knob
Each aftermarket knob will have its own instructions but all should be pretty straight forward eg. Rubber cap + gear knob + 3 little screws for the universal knobs.
I reassembled the collar part on the boot (has just enough friction between the parts to not need glue) to give it more of a stock look, some videos mention using a zip tie but I wasn’t a fan of the pinched off look.  Theres enough stiffness in the boot material to keep it prop it up against the bottom of the knob but I’ll be getting a rubber grommet to go on the underside to make sure and also some kind of end cap to tidy up the collar area, even tho its not really visible.
(since writing this post, I've found the boot sits up just fine without any extra support so all I've done is add a plastic spacer to tidy the small gap between the boot and the bottom of the knob)

 

And that’s it! I finally appeased the 90s boy racer in me that just HAD to have something MOMO on my car haha 😂

Hopefully this helps someone!

Really nice guide 👍 Thanks for taking the time to publish it. I wish this had been about when I switched mine over to a Forge 'Big Knob' (... 😳) a few years' back.

 

I too found most of the YT / FB / other videos and blogs around this to provide a bit of misinformation about how 'easy' this was to do. It's not easy to do without scratching some of the piano black surrounds or even splitting lovely brittle plastic parts... but the one above looks spot on.

 

What Momo shifter model is that? I'm 99% sure that wasn't around in the UK 2 years ago... pretty jel 😉 - but hope you enjoy it; it's amazing what difference it makes with a slightly lower action & way nicer feel!

19 hours ago, Ads230 said:

Really nice guide 👍 Thanks for taking the time to publish it. I wish this had been about when I switched mine over to a Forge 'Big Knob' (... 😳) a few years' back.

 

I too found most of the YT / FB / other videos and blogs around this to provide a bit of misinformation about how 'easy' this was to do. It's not easy to do without scratching some of the piano black surrounds or even splitting lovely brittle plastic parts... but the one above looks spot on.

 

What Momo shifter model is that? I'm 99% sure that wasn't around in the UK 2 years ago... pretty jel 😉 - but hope you enjoy it; it's amazing what difference it makes with a slightly lower action & way nicer feel!

thanks! yea i was surprised there was so little out there, hopefully this helps for future reference 🙂

oh man, those little clips are so brittle!  i swear i broke one from staring at it too long! lol

shifter is a "nero", has the branding on the back which im not a huge fan of but its pretty much invisible when in use.  was originally looking at bfi and other high end ones but just couldnt justify the price, so after a short search on universal ones the momo popped up and sparked a whole bunch of old memories.  ended up getting this near new one for half price off the local "hock and hope" website... actually i think you guys have gumtree too 😂

yep, spot on! made a HUGE difference to feel and shift even tho this one isnt that heavy at all.  the stock one had me thinking the gates or links needed to be redone but after the swap its been great!  was originally thinking of a short shifter but i dont feel i need it anymore 👌  highly recommended to anyone thinking about doing it, ditch the flakey chrome stocko one!

Good guide. I was lucky and found a 2nd hand gaiter and trim for 8 quid on eBAY so got to keep my OEM setup in tact and in the loft. I went for a raceseng from the states

 

 

17 hours ago, DC04R said:

Good guide. I was lucky and found a 2nd hand gaiter and trim for 8 quid on eBAY so got to keep my OEM setup in tact and in the loft. I went for a raceseng from the states

 

 

good score and it looks great!  the raceseng ones are super nice too (y)

Hi I was struggling to access the gear lever locking pin as the on line vids etc did not seem to fit with what I could see.

On my daughters 2020 1.0 60 SE. I got some suggestions from other members and managed by 1. Working at the back edge 2. Inserting an old plastic card between the shiny trim and the centre console until it felt something. 3 sliding the card toward the left corner while pushing down on the card and gently pulling up on the gaiter. The corner clip just clicked and let go then it was easy to free the others.

Photo below if inserted card.

Hope someone finds this helpful.