Would people buy these shift knobs?

Lol, like people here are against buying things online or American?? wake the fk up you are driving a Toyota. Further most of the boys here shop harbor freight and probably got a smart phone in their pocket made guess where? Look at your shoes Jr. where’d they come from? I thought so. Get out a dictionary and look up the word obtuse. whether you like it or not it’s a world market. BTW I’ve got a Lexus, what an awesome car.

 

Wow just Wow. I think you might have read more into this than was intended to deserve that response!

 

hey man, hes just saying he appreciates craftsmanship. no need to tell people they have to buy only imported goods, just because they drive a japanese brand truck (that was most likely built in the us anyways).

its all good, were all friends.

 

No Emmett you’ve misunderstood what I’ve been saying from the beginning. Let me try again one more time. It’s a global economy and despite the touchy-feely good vibrations of buying American the consumers will check prices looking for a deal or at least a floor on what items are trading for. Amazon has become a giant because of this while brick and mortar mom and pop shops are going the way of the dinosaurs. Wal-Mart has put millions out of work because people vote their pocketbooks despite their chest thumping here online about how much they love American made goods. Good luck sir

If anybody likes buying American products it would be me. I’m an over 60 military veteran licensed mechanic and a proud union member. I’ve seen the demise of American manufacturing and I don’t like it. I bet there’s more than one person here who did at least some of their Christmas shopping through amazon not giving a damn where it’s from.

In closing I’ll leave you with this example of real American manufacturing at its best. Ck out Hanks Leather Goods they make wallets, belts, holsters, etc. high quality stuff but I wonder how many of these guys here would pay up for real American quality. The hanks stuff is actually cheaper because it lasts longer

 

Proudly wearing a $50 hanks belt now, got another just for work, about to order 2 more due to losing 50ish pounds.

Avoiding the temptation to comeback with insults.

 

I appreciate the kind words very much! I love old machines and especially lathes... I'm jealous. I looked for an old cast lathe for a while but none that fit my needs popped up locally. I'm sorry to hear about the medical condition. If you decide on a 6 speed knob let me know, and if you want an auto one, I should have those in production in a little bit too!

 

just avoid the negativity, and it will go away....

 

I snapped a couple pics, this is how the hurst core ss knob gets attached to their shift arm. A thin nut, you get the knob positioned and tighten the nut up against it. I should mention, the nut has a raised round smaller portion that actually touches the knob so, it’s not a regular nut.

With their ss kit, you remove your entire shifter, replace with their taller one, their shift arm and knob. The urd kit puts a spacer under your existing shifter, utilizes your existing shift arm and knob.

Those who went with hurst swear it’s the best, now have a 3/8-16 thread knob. Those who went with the urd kit swear it’s the best, have the original, I think it’s 12mm 1.25 thread knob.

 

awesome, thank you for the pics. I think im going to start with the standard tacoma shifter knobs to keep it easy, but if all goes smoothly then I will start thinking about those- theres just so many factors already.

have you had issues with the gear noise? ive thought about getting one of them, but keep telling myself its a truck, not a racecar

....but it would be so nice to have one

 

Do you also do any fountain pens?

 

I've done a few in the past, haven't had any requests for fountain pens in several years.

 

$50! you lucked out Good luck with selling the truck, there are still people out there that will search for them (as I did), just gotta wait!

 

These are beautiful. I would buy one for my Tacoma and also a pair for my 4Runner if you make a batch. Not so sure about maple, but anything dark with character. I make custom tables and unique cutting boards and other stuff with hardwood glue-ups, but never got the turning bug.

 

Thank you! Ill keep everyone posted. Once my parts come in for inserts ill get prototyping. and yeah the maple isnt as pretty as i thought it would be- it didnt turn as well as planned. i think im going to put an order in for more sapele. Tough getting wood in small orders right now...

the maple was fun to experiment with once i knew it wasnt turning well... tried torching it and a different oil. lots of experimenting to do....

 

When I swapped the shifter, I replaced the transmission gear oil at the same time. At first, the noise was a pretty intense grinding that was more like a sanding noise. Now it’s less noticeable and really only audible if I rest my hand on the knob. Even that noise is getting less the more I drive it.

I bought the urd kit but never installed it. I thought the shifter arm epoxy was compromised but it turned out to be just the white bushing was shot. I just didn’t want to install the urd ss, then later have to get the shifter arm re-epoxied. I like to fix everything I can not having to take it apart again to fix something else.

The hurst is a very short throw, feels quite notchy. Far different than stock. My only complaints are how hard it is to get reverse. Also, I ordered a white knob, they sent a black one.

 

Thanks for the quick review. Hm maybe thats shorter than Id prefer anyways... You still have the urd kit laying around?

 

Hi Emmett,

Sapele is really nice, and pretty good for working, after mahogany. I use it for tabletops, since the striations are very cool and it is affordably available in wide, long boards. Here's a sapele top side table I did as part of a set of 2 with goncalo alves legs and maple and wenge accents.

If you have any guitar or bass luthiers in your area, they generally have offcuts from making instrument necks that would be perfect for turning for shifter knobs.

 

I do still have the urd kit somewhere. I opened it to look at it but never put it on. I also bought a new white bushing which is laying around somewhere.

I don’t know if the hurst has a shorter throw than the urd. If the epoxy in your stock arm needs redone, Gadget didn’t have and couldn’t find a handle core for mine so I would have had to send him mine & be without a vehicle for about a week. I think he also can shorten the height of the stock arm.

 

We have 3 shops on Maui (currently temporarily closed) that have decent stocks of hardwood and fancy plywood. Every once in a while I pick up a few sticks, make them forklift the stacks of long 4/4 and 8/4 so I can go through them for pieces that I like. When we built our house, I went to Edensaw in Port Townsend, Wa and filled up a container with mahogany, wedge, bloodwood, bubinga, birds eye maple and goodies.
My most prolific output is end grain eye dazzler cutting boards. I sometimes put batches up for sale at galleries and for local chefs and foodies. It takes a lot of time, and if I figure my hourly fair rate and materials it doesn't make sense economically, but it brings me joy. I guess playing bass in bands and other music stuff is also a financial dead end, but I really enjoy it.

 

Sweet table!
Last batch of boards were for a Christmas gallery at the arts & cultural center. The large chefs' ones 15"x12.5" retailed for $280, the smaller ones 12.5"x9.5" were $180. I forget what percentage they took out of that for the arts center. They wanted some cheaper gift items, too, so I did some quick glue ups and made some door stops and also small no-glue-up walnut and mahogany plain boards for them.
The end grain boards are truly a lot of work. They are like a rubrics cube to set the pattern and get the grain end up, with several of sequential glue-ups and slicing and sanding the end grain each time.