I always liked the way the M45 shift **** and boot looked. Low profile, nothing too fancy, just a clean OEM look. I don't know if anyone else has tried this crazy idea.

Some of you might remember the thread I posted a few days ago, with a work in progress on the shift **** adaptation on my automatic coupe.
early pics

After thinking back and forth on what the best way to mount the shift boot was, I finally came up with one method. I secured the shift boot to the black plastic piece that goes underneath the circular trim piece. I got rid of that accordian like black plastic, that I could never manage to keep clean. I secured a piece of aluminum to clean up the look of the areas on the circular trim that I had to cut out. I then polished that aluminum piece.

I usually never do interior mods on my cars, but that 2003 shift **** just had to go.

I wish that I could take some pics in the daytime, but this will give you guys an idea of what the final project looks like.







BTW: I apologize if this thread appears multiple times. I'm having trouble posting for some reason.

 

Some more with the lever in park. I like that the material on the **** matches almost exactly with the leather on the seats.

 

Last one. I wish Infiniti went with this **** and boot in the first place.

 

thats sick

 

You should have another aluminun piece made that covers the entire circle--including the shift lock release button. You can use very thin double sided tape to secure it if it doesn't snap in place. We very rarely need access to that button anyway. If you do need it won't be a hassle to reseat the trim.

 

E K........one word........SICK!! Great work man!.....Wait......two more words.....Creatively SICK!!!!

 

Great Job!!! I want one!!!!!...BTW...what about the manushift mode? I notice it's covered up? I guess you don't use it much?

 

The manumatic area is still open. I actually opened up more of the circular trim. That piece doesn't actually provide the boundaries for the movement of the shift lever. The mechanism inside is what dictates where and how far you can move the lever.

Eldy, I thought about covering more of the outer piece with the polished aluminum, but I would have to get a machine shop to cut ouf perfect circles for the P-R-N-D. I really wanted to keep those letters visible, since I'm not trying to make this look like a manual transmission, but rather I wanted to update the look of that 2003 shift ****.

The aluminum is secured right now with both double side mounting tape (very strong), and through the aluminum being bent around the sides of where the shift area is. Once I bent that aluminum, the piece actually holds itself in place, but I decided to put tape just to make it even more secure.

 

Very nicely done, I like the OEM clean look...best **** on an auto I've seen so far

For the alum trim, I would suggest going all the way or not at all, the half alum look is kinda weird...doesn't fit.

Can you do the hole circle in alum? (cutouts for P R N D,and + - )

 

Very nice and clean.

 

Gosh that looks familiar.....
I like it bro, congrats.
C.

 

That looks awesome. I'd love to do something similar.

But I have to agree though, you should cover the entire thing. You could get some stickers of some sort, or take off the pattern it comes with and work with that to get the PRND showing, shouldn't be too hard, but I still think it looks a little incomplete without the same material all around.

 

Thanks for the input. I could strip the paint off the rest of the circular trim and then polish that. The circular piece is actually aluminum cemented on top of ABS plastic. So there actually is some real aluminum along with all the faux aluminum plastic on the 2003-2004 AT coupes. Maybe I'll do that when I have more time next week.

 

EK,
I like it more everytime I look at it. How about a diy on the shift boot and aluminum plate?

 

The selected gear/mode already shows on the instrument panel. Plus, you can basically put the transmission into any mode by feel anyway. Looks great though!