Aftermarket MT shift knobs

You're not going away from the tower of power...admit it lol...but I like your collection

 

Super random, but I wanted to float this observation. I noticed that the stock knob flies around quite a bit when driving over speed bumps or any rough offroad trails. If the knob is "too heavy," is there any chance it could kinetically knock itself out of gear?

 

Try to knock yours out of gear with your hand one day...without touching the clutch. I think you'll find your answer.

 

hasn't happened to me, got the heaviest knob i know of mounted currently.

but it banged my knee so hard i saw stars once.

 

I think it' just a characteristic of the truck, I notice the shifter bounces around quite a bit in everyday driving. I think the engine and transmission have softer mounts than before to keep vibrations down.

 

Any truck or car that has a manual transmission you will see movement from shift levers. Drivetrain and chassis are independent of each other, isolated by motor and trans mounts.

 

Truth. Only way to lessen it would be to go to solid mounts but they come with their own set of different drawbacks like breaking other stuff and overall harshness versus soft mounts like rubber or even polyurethane.

 

Anyone know exactly how much the TRD ball (

$71 PTR26-35060 Shift Knobs, TRD, 6-speed

PTR26-35060) weighs? I've got a WC Lathewerks knob right now. Little heavy feel at 465 grams - be on the lookout for it going up for sale possibly...

 

I am very fond of the OEM shifter knob. If anyone has removed theirs to replace with an aftermarket product and need a place to dispose of their OEM knob, I'd be glad to give you a place to store it.
The shifter knob on my Gen2 Tacoma is shot. I have not tried fitting the one from my Gen3 on it to see if they're interchangeable yet. If anyone knows the interchangeability between Gen3 to Gen2 6MT shifter knobs, fill me in.

 

Amazon list it at right around 200 grams, which sounds about right to me. I don't have a small scale, but next time I'm near one I can weigh mine.

 

This whole knob topweight thing reminds me of how engineers render some old skyscrapers earthquake-proof; they stick a heavy weight at the top of the building that allows the ground to sway and roll while the top stays relatively stationary due to the weight's inertia. The result is the building's sway frequency will never match the earth's frequency and the building won't snap.

 

I'm building a 3D printer just so i can make this feasible for a small production run.

I have all of the CNC code written for a 1pc billet, but the time I will need to complete it just isn't going to work for what little downtime our machines have. I would also need to order $200 worth of special tooling for the billet version, which has also delayed me a bit. I figure that $200 can build a nice enough printer, and I'll be left with so much more in the end.

I'm thinking stainless for the ball, and plastic for the boot connector.

Stay tuned!

 

Will that knob threading work on a 2nd Gen? I really like the look of that one over my OEM one.....

 

I can invest in your venture.

 

It may, check the thread compatibility on google. I’m betting they’re the same

 

I'll redo the CAD work early next week, and then see what kind of weight that a few different materials will produce.

Stainless is easy to come by for me, if aluminum was desired it would have to be special ordered.

Then there is the coating process, I could use direction for that... as it's not in my current skill set.

I would like that shown color scheme, but it would have to look clean.

 

You could always use a carbon steel and acid bath it, give it a nice oxide look and over time use will give it a cool patina.

 

Update:

File is transferred from Mastercam to Fusion 360 now, and I reworked it to a 2pc from 1pc.

I thought about threads as the fastening method, which could work ... BUT ...

Considering the ID features are eccentric to the OD features, lining them up would require shaving of the faces until everything matched up. That's not a huge problem, but then the face of the knob will have very little chance of mating flush with the boot connector that way. I say, to save a lot of potential problems we can just loctite the damn thing. Either that, or I might be able to fit a small socket head screw in there.

6061 aluminum is coming in at 269 grams, plus the trivial amount of the plastic connector.

Carbon steel and Stainless are hovering around 784g ... which might be a bit too hefty for this design.

Some pics, don't mind the weird blue color, I just have it highlighted to show contrast.

 

The boot connector doesnt have to be eccentric-- thats just how the TRD shift knob was when making the CAD. For a ball, centered (concentric) is fine... I think the last file I uploaded was that way.

 

True, it could probably have been made concentric ... but I found it was easier to just reverse engineer the stock knob and collar.