2003 Sedan AT center console upgrade (FX shift panel, shift knob, titanium paint)
#1
11-17-2007, 08:46 PM
2003 Sedan AT center console upgrade (FX shift panel, shift ****, titanium paint)
Parts needed:
- (1) 2006-08 Infiniti FX shifter panel
- (1) 2005-06 Infiniti G35 AT shift ****
- (1) 2005-06 Infiniti G35 AT shifter adaptor (blue)
- (1) can Krylon Fusion "Nickel Shimmer" paint
- (3) 4X-5/8" sheetmetal screws
- (2) 6X-3/8" sheetmetal screws
- (1) 6X-5/16" wood screw
Here goes: I spent around a total of 7 hours over two days last week updating the center console in my 03 sedan. In the beginning, the first thing I wanted to do was change out the ridiculously large shifter that came in the 03-04 5AT sedans to the one that came in the 05-06 sedan. After trying to locate a used one for the past 4 months with no luck, I ended up buying it from Jason at Riverside for a premium....$140ish
Along with that, you have to purchase a new 05-06 shift adaptor that goes underneath the shift ****. This is the part under the **** that gets pushed down so you can change gears. The original one on the 03-04 is white, the newer one for the new shift **** is blue. They are designed differently, and you need the new one for the new shift ****. I got mine from Riverside as well for about $15. I also thought about upgrading the shift panel (shift gate) to the chrome one that comes in the '06+ FX. I have an '04 FX35 and I've already completed that retrofit in my FX, so I basically knew what parts I needed to get and how to do it. I bought the '06 FX shift panel from InfinitiPartsUSA.com for around $50 http://www.trademotion.com/partlocat...catalogid=3323 . And finally, I have the non-sport model, so my center console was the dark gray plastic. I thought about installing a real aluminum dash kit, but I couldn't find one that wrapped all the way around the console or looked halfway decent. So then I thought about purchasing the "titanium" console that came in the 03-04 sport models. But since that is just paint anyway, I thought about just painting it myself and saving the money. I bought some Krylon Fusion "Nickel Shimmer" spray paint and tested it on a piece of plastic. Turned out almost identical to the "aluminum" door pull caps, with an interesting texture and satin finish. (You'll notice that I masked off the ring around the clock and painted that as well.)
First I disassembled the entire center console, which included the armrest and PITA radio. I was hoping to only have to remove a few clips to get the console finisher off the radio, but you have to remove the entire head unit/climate controls so you can unscrew the console finisher from it.
Stupid design IMO. I used this DIY as a guide http://www.autotalk.com/how-to/infin...o-install.html . Then I disassembled all of the pieces, masked all pieces very carefully and prepped the surfaces with rubbing alcohol. The Krylon Fusion instructions suggest against sanding the surface, so I skipped that. I put 5 thin coats of paint on each part, waiting 20-40 minutes in between each coat. After letting them sit most of the day, I reassembled and reinstalled the parts, with the exception of the one that goes over the shifter. Krylon Fusion fully dries in 24 hrs, but takes 7 days to become hard/chip resistant. Be careful installing.
Next I installed the '06 FX shift panel. I used the DIY on InfinitiFX.org as my guide http://www.infinitifx.org/viewtopic.php?t=12634 , although the vehicles are not 100% the same, so you have to do some modification to the G35. Mainly, the difference is there is almost no clearance between the bottom of the center console and the shifter assembly underneath. The best way I can describe this is that there are two parts of the G/FX shift plates; one is aluminum/chrome and goes on top of the center console, and the other is black plastic and goes underneath the center console. Both parts screw together to fit snuggly and sandwich the center console. Well, the black part of the G35 shift panel is a little thinner than the one for the FX, so you have to make the new FX black part thinner by cutting off parts that stick out. I spent the bulk of my time trying to get it to fit underneath the center console to the point that the console would snap into place....perhaps 3 hours. Lots of cutting away the plastic on the G35's shifter assembly beneath and on the black part of the FX shifter panel. Cut, test fit, cut, test fit, etc. In short, you are trying to fit a 1.5" thick part into a space of 1.25". Finally it was thin enough that the console would snap down into place fully. The two pieces of the shifter plate (chrome top and black bottom) are secured together by 3 longer screws, and then I used 2 small screws to permanently secure the shifter plate to the bottom of the center console (see the pictures in the InfinitiFX.org DIY). Before permanently securing it, I test-fitted it to make sure it was positioned correctly so I could shift through all the gears and manual mode without problems.
Now I attempted to install the new 05-06 G35 shift ****. I thought this was a direct swap with the new shift adaptor. Wrong. The two groves on the sides of the metal pole where the spring clip secures the shift **** onto the pole are about 1/4 inch below where the groves are on the 05-06 shift **** are. I attempted to cut new groves in the white plastic on the sides of the shift **** 1/4 inch lower (so I could still use the spring clip to secure the shift ****). This initially worked, but then I couldn't get the top of the "leather" boot on the FX shift panel to snap onto the bottom of the shift **** because the spring clip was now in the way. After about an hour of trying to cut parts of the top of the shift boot, I finally realized to use a small screw to secure the shift **** onto the pole by screwing it into one lone hole on the back of the pole. This worked, but again the shift boot wouldn't snap onto the shift **** because of the new obstruction. After more cursing and cutting away of things inside the shift boot clip, it finally snapped together.
And here is the final product, before and after. Unfortunately I didn't think to document this with pictures along the way.
- (1) 2006-08 Infiniti FX shifter panel
- (1) 2005-06 Infiniti G35 AT shift ****
- (1) 2005-06 Infiniti G35 AT shifter adaptor (blue)
- (1) can Krylon Fusion "Nickel Shimmer" paint
- (3) 4X-5/8" sheetmetal screws
- (2) 6X-3/8" sheetmetal screws
- (1) 6X-5/16" wood screw
Here goes: I spent around a total of 7 hours over two days last week updating the center console in my 03 sedan. In the beginning, the first thing I wanted to do was change out the ridiculously large shifter that came in the 03-04 5AT sedans to the one that came in the 05-06 sedan. After trying to locate a used one for the past 4 months with no luck, I ended up buying it from Jason at Riverside for a premium....$140ish
Along with that, you have to purchase a new 05-06 shift adaptor that goes underneath the shift ****. This is the part under the **** that gets pushed down so you can change gears. The original one on the 03-04 is white, the newer one for the new shift **** is blue. They are designed differently, and you need the new one for the new shift ****. I got mine from Riverside as well for about $15. I also thought about upgrading the shift panel (shift gate) to the chrome one that comes in the '06+ FX. I have an '04 FX35 and I've already completed that retrofit in my FX, so I basically knew what parts I needed to get and how to do it. I bought the '06 FX shift panel from InfinitiPartsUSA.com for around $50 http://www.trademotion.com/partlocat...catalogid=3323 . And finally, I have the non-sport model, so my center console was the dark gray plastic. I thought about installing a real aluminum dash kit, but I couldn't find one that wrapped all the way around the console or looked halfway decent. So then I thought about purchasing the "titanium" console that came in the 03-04 sport models. But since that is just paint anyway, I thought about just painting it myself and saving the money. I bought some Krylon Fusion "Nickel Shimmer" spray paint and tested it on a piece of plastic. Turned out almost identical to the "aluminum" door pull caps, with an interesting texture and satin finish. (You'll notice that I masked off the ring around the clock and painted that as well.) First I disassembled the entire center console, which included the armrest and PITA radio. I was hoping to only have to remove a few clips to get the console finisher off the radio, but you have to remove the entire head unit/climate controls so you can unscrew the console finisher from it.
Stupid design IMO. I used this DIY as a guide http://www.autotalk.com/how-to/infin...o-install.html . Then I disassembled all of the pieces, masked all pieces very carefully and prepped the surfaces with rubbing alcohol. The Krylon Fusion instructions suggest against sanding the surface, so I skipped that. I put 5 thin coats of paint on each part, waiting 20-40 minutes in between each coat. After letting them sit most of the day, I reassembled and reinstalled the parts, with the exception of the one that goes over the shifter. Krylon Fusion fully dries in 24 hrs, but takes 7 days to become hard/chip resistant. Be careful installing.Next I installed the '06 FX shift panel. I used the DIY on InfinitiFX.org as my guide http://www.infinitifx.org/viewtopic.php?t=12634 , although the vehicles are not 100% the same, so you have to do some modification to the G35. Mainly, the difference is there is almost no clearance between the bottom of the center console and the shifter assembly underneath. The best way I can describe this is that there are two parts of the G/FX shift plates; one is aluminum/chrome and goes on top of the center console, and the other is black plastic and goes underneath the center console. Both parts screw together to fit snuggly and sandwich the center console. Well, the black part of the G35 shift panel is a little thinner than the one for the FX, so you have to make the new FX black part thinner by cutting off parts that stick out. I spent the bulk of my time trying to get it to fit underneath the center console to the point that the console would snap into place....perhaps 3 hours. Lots of cutting away the plastic on the G35's shifter assembly beneath and on the black part of the FX shifter panel. Cut, test fit, cut, test fit, etc. In short, you are trying to fit a 1.5" thick part into a space of 1.25". Finally it was thin enough that the console would snap down into place fully. The two pieces of the shifter plate (chrome top and black bottom) are secured together by 3 longer screws, and then I used 2 small screws to permanently secure the shifter plate to the bottom of the center console (see the pictures in the InfinitiFX.org DIY). Before permanently securing it, I test-fitted it to make sure it was positioned correctly so I could shift through all the gears and manual mode without problems.
Now I attempted to install the new 05-06 G35 shift ****. I thought this was a direct swap with the new shift adaptor. Wrong. The two groves on the sides of the metal pole where the spring clip secures the shift **** onto the pole are about 1/4 inch below where the groves are on the 05-06 shift **** are. I attempted to cut new groves in the white plastic on the sides of the shift **** 1/4 inch lower (so I could still use the spring clip to secure the shift ****). This initially worked, but then I couldn't get the top of the "leather" boot on the FX shift panel to snap onto the bottom of the shift **** because the spring clip was now in the way. After about an hour of trying to cut parts of the top of the shift boot, I finally realized to use a small screw to secure the shift **** onto the pole by screwing it into one lone hole on the back of the pole. This worked, but again the shift boot wouldn't snap onto the shift **** because of the new obstruction. After more cursing and cutting away of things inside the shift boot clip, it finally snapped together.
And here is the final product, before and after. Unfortunately I didn't think to document this with pictures along the way.
Last edited by GixxerSteve; 10-03-2008 at 05:25 AM.
#3
11-17-2007, 09:28 PM
#7
11-18-2007, 11:01 AM
Originally Posted by G35 Mass
Does the shifter sit higher than the stock one? seems like it.
What parts are necessary to do the conversion to the new shifter base and handle?
What parts are necessary to do the conversion to the new shifter base and handle?
The parts you need for this conversion are listed in my original post up top:
(1) 06+ FX shift panel http://www.trademotion.com/partlocat...catalogid=3323
(1) 2005-2006 G35 AT shift ****
(1) Shifter adaptor for the 05-06 ****
(3) sheetmetal screws 4X - 5/8"
(2) sheetmetal screws 6X - 3/8"
(1) wood screw 6X - 5/16"
I got the shift panel, shift **** and shift adaptor from Infiniti. The screws I got from Ace. Total cost for the parts was about $200.
Last edited by GixxerSteve; 11-18-2007 at 01:33 PM.
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11-18-2007, 04:55 PM
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