New shift knob

Made a new shift knob.

 

Firstrival: Yep, I miss the nicely polished ball from my IS300, so I came up with this for both the C and the CT.

Yeah, I miss driving a manual too.

Well, I'm not taking all the credit as I didn't cast and cnc each ball. They're basically large / pricey cabinet knobs with a standard 1/4" thread. I made a jig to hold the balls without scratching them so I can re-drill and re-tap them to M8x1.25. In order to cover up all of the screw threads on the car's shifter shaft, I had to re-drill them way deeper than how they came, and I had to use both a tapered tap and a blind hole tap. They then go through a final polish with a polishing cloth. As far as being a perfect sphere is concerned, they're not (but close enough), so there are imperfections in the shape if you look closely for them.

Because of the potential screw-up factor and high cost of shipping (in case I had to buy more if I screw up), I actually got a few of each in both brass and aluminum. As it turned out, the project was easier than I had thought, so I have a few to play around with and slapped one on the C.

Here is a brass one in my CT200h:



I was going to artificially age one of the brass knobs with Liver of Sulphur to see if I can get an old steam-punk look from it.

Since the brass ball weighs so much more than the aluminum one, I may put one on the C, but I suspect it may clash with the interior. I'm now thinking a heavily patina'ed brass knob would look good in the C.

 

The shift knob aged well with the liver of sulphur treatment. Got some interesting brown, gold, blue and red hues.



The wife likes the patina'ed look in the C: