Custom auto-shifter faceplate "rebuild"

[SonicAdventure]

OK, so after almost two years of driving my V70 I knew I had to deal with my broken and very beat up shifter/selector faceplate.

First of all, I didn't even realize until a few months ago that it was supposed to light up - something I knew I was really missing out on as my last car (Honda Accord) did light up AND it had a gear position light on the dashboard as well. You always knew what gear you were in, even though it is pretty hard to be confused in an automatic.

Nevertheless, my shifter faceplate was very dirty, the plastic gear label was busted and rattling around, it didn't light up and I was sick of looking at it. I don't like the weird "bristle" like stuff that surrounds the crevice because it was impossible to clean without taking the console off. I'm sure that material was used for some purpose, maybe to stop squeaks, but it's very hard to clean. And, the PO was not very careful with this car. I have spent a lot of time in the last 24 month when time permitted, to get dirt and grime out of all the various crevices and interior surfaces. I still have a lot to go...

Originally, my car had the plain plastic shifter knob but the button was broken, so I jumped at the chance to find a woodgrain one on one of my trips to the junkyard last summer. But, after installing it, I didn't like the way it looked because I don't have the other woodgrain pieces, plus its very slippery and tends to feel kind of cheap to the touch. So last month when I found the leather-wrapped one in a 2000 XC70 I got the inspiration to finally tackle this job once and for all.

Some of you more experienced forum users have probably had this part of the car taken apart for one reason or another, so I post these pics of the various components in hopes that others who might be thinking of tackling this job might be reassured that it isn't too complex.

The shifter faceplate assembly is made up of the following parts:

* The plastic trim panel that clips to the linkage tower under the center console
* The leatherette "boot" that goes around the actual metal shifter rod (this part is removable)
* The white light box / gear selector slider (this is also removable but easy to break the plastic retaining tabs)
* A thin, flexible grey plastic insert with the gear designations on it
* A thicker clear plastic insert that separates the selector slider from the top piece with gear designations

Also included in this assembly is a foam ring that gives the boot some shape, and a black plastic square that clips to the bottom of the shifter knob from within the boot that holds it in place and prevents the boot from "bunching" up.

Since my shifter faceplate was so beat up, I bought a much newer and cleaner looking one and set to disassembling it. While I was happy to learn that the lightbulbs that illuminate this unit are readily available, I began to think that just plain while dots with a red selector dot behind them was a bit to boring.

Years ago, I had a 1984 XJ Jeep Cherokee and the numbers on the 4WD (2WD, N, 4H & 4L) shifter were kind of bland and wearing off. The 4WD selector faceplate was easy to remove and backlit from within the console. One night, I decided to see what I could do to enhance the appearance of the faceplate and I came up with the idea of shading the numbers. I soon realized that permanent markers applied from the inside weren't going to hold up, so I came up with the idea of epoxy gluing small translucent pieces of plastic to the inside of the faceplate. What did I use for the plastic inserts? Mainly clippings from food wrappers such as peanut bags, beef jerky bags and chip / snack wraps. By cutting the little squares and smearing them with epoxy, I was able to create a film on the inside that not only lit up different colors at night when the lights were on, but were easier to see during the day.

So, I applied this technique to the Volvo shifter. I think the blue "Park" clipping was from a little peanut wrapper, the red and green were from a beef jerky bag and the yellow was from a bread wrapper. The key is to use something with a little bit of thickness. Obviously, paper or very thin plastic wouldn't do for this application. The interesting thing about the way Volvo made this selector insert was that after gluing the little colored pieces on, I buttered on a layer of epoxy to the back of the selector piece and then sandwhiched it to the top of the thicker clear piece. So, the thicker clear piece protects the little colored plastic tabs from being peeled off by the sliding gear selector indicator below.

My theory for the color coding went like this: Green is for GO, so that had to be Drive. Red is for stopping or caution, so that had to be for 3 and Low. Yellow for Neutral, and light blue for Reverse, and a dark blue for Park. My girlfriend's Toyota Matrix has a similar multi-colored selector scheme but not exactly like the pattern I choose. I suppose if someone wanted a uniform approach, they could make all the letters one color. On R cars maybe all letters in the dark blue would look good since the gauges are blue, but who knows maybe R's already have a different selector faceplate.

Removing the console was not too bad, thanks to Robert's videos and other things I've seen online. The entire console went into the bathtub and much Windex and papertowels were spent on cleaning it up. If it weren't for all the electrical items attached to the console, I probably would have thrown it into a steaming bathtub, but nevertheless, it went back into the car much cleaner than it came out.

I probably wouldn't have undertaken this effort had my faceplate not been so badly beaten up and dirty. But, I am happy with the results and it was definitely worth the afternoon it took me to get this project wrapped up.

[SonicAdventure]

A photo of my original faceplate; dirty, dim and broken

[SonicAdventure]

The faceplate components

[SonicAdventure]

Close up of indicator and clear plastic backer; front and back

[SonicAdventure]

completed work, day and night...wish my camera picked up the colors better at night. It looks much better in person.

[Matt88ch]

Awesome job, makes me wanna do mine now, thanks for the inspiration!

[SonicAdventure]

Thanks Matt. It was a pretty fun repair to make and it cost next to nothing and at the same time made a huge improvement.

I'd like to experiment with sandwiching a piece of green tinted film, blue tinted film and even mirror tinted film between the back of the selector panel and the clear hard plastic. I think a green tint the same color as the radio dial backlighting would look pretty cool.