klamer

Hello

Does anyone have any tips on how to get the leather wheelskin shift boot up over the shift ****?

I pulled and pulled on mine and unfortunately ripped the stitching. I'd like to not repeat that so I did a quick search for some tips and all I could come up with was talcum powder (although that wasn't wheelskin specific) and something about turning it inside out kind of and reversing it once it was through I believe.


Thanks

Travis - sflraver

The wheelskin boots do not fit all that well over the ****. Most people fold them under and let them sit down on the shaft. You save a bit on the boot over a "real one" made for the 944 but...

klamer

Are you referring to the shift boot sold by Rennbay?

http://www.rennbay.com/porsche-944-l...-kit-p-76.html

That's just an assumption made on my part based on your signature. If that's the case, what's the difference between the two, cut differently for fit?

jmd_forest

1) Spray the shift **** with a little silicone spray
2) Insert the bottom of the shift **** into the top of the boot
3) Work the leather up little by little and the **** down little by little. This took me several hours to do. I used a pair of pliers to grab the leather and leveraged the pliers against the top of the **** while gently pulling the leather. Push the leather up from the bottom as well as pull from the top.
4) Once you get enough leather to tuck into the top of the ****, tuck the leather into the center depression using a tiny screw driver and use a screw on bottle top (you'll have to find one the correct size) as a temporary "**** center" to hold the leather into place for a day or so.
5) Remove bottle cap and insert the real center cap. I had to use a vice to push the real center cap into place. If you use this method, tighten the vice little by little over several hours.

jmd_forest

Jfrahm

I've done about four of them and it's not so bad. Silicone spray is important, I popped some stitches on the first one I did when I tried to install it dry. I like the bottle cap idea, I just kept tucking and retucking the leather into the cap area until I could loosely put the cap on.

Leaving the skin out in the sun to get warm helps too.

The replacement leather is thicker than stock, very nice. I have yet to see a **** setup I like as well as a recovered stocker.

-Joel.

klamer

Thanks for the replies guys, I'm going to try out the silicone spray for sure. I had thought briefly about WD40 but I didn't want to damage the leather.

The pliers are actually how I damaged my first one but it was more operator error than anything else. I was pulling over the seams when I lost the grip and the jaws of the pliers scraped across the seam, cutting the thread.

Someone had also given me the tip of finding the largest socket that will fit into the top with the leather pulled over it, squeezing it in and letting it sit for a few hours, in line with the bottle top idea.

It seems that this project is closer to hours rather than minutes and I think I was rushing it as well, so silicone spray and patience will be the order of the day.

Thanks again.