Billiard Ball Shift Knob
for 2005 Mustang GT

I've had my Mustang GT nearly 5 years now and just a few weeks ago my shift knob broke! What the Flippin' Hell!!@#@$%

The top silver part 'fell-off' in my hand! No, I wasn't man-handling it (as I sometimes do). The silver part felt like it was just balanced on the top. I was shifting into 3rd when it just fell off in my palm.

This sort of thing felt EXACTLY like the sort of thing that FORD bashers seem to site as examples.

Well, that got me motivated to search for another shift knob. Turns out there's a bunch of crap out there and not too many good options. Especially seems like every time I found a good shift knob, it was for the previous model mustangs. Why don't they all have the same threading?

Anyhow, there are Cobra shift knobs. (I don't' have a cobra, so I don't buy cobra stuff). There are other plastic knobs, and knobs wrapped in pleather.

The knob that comes with the 2005 Mustang GT was made out of plastic and leather. The parts that failed were 4 plastic clips that helped the top plastic part stay in place. Each of the 4 plastic tabs had been sheered clean off.

I ended up settling on a billiard-ball shift knob. I thought that is very classic, but didn't want to go with an 8 ball. I'm not going for the rat-ride look. I found a guy (Bob D @ www.dzcues.com ) online who makes among other billiard things, shift knobs for Mustang GTs. My request was simple, I would like one billiard-ball #10 shift knob that fits to my car. A short pay-pal payment later and he had started my order.

I imagine he used a belt sander, a drill press, a tape-measure and jack-hammer. You can guess, I have no idea what process he used to put it together. The package arrived sooner than expected. I got it Saturday of labor day weekend. Quickly washed my car, and went to work pulling-apart my shift knob.

After some pulling and torquing and torque-pulling... I was able to finally remove the old shift knob from the fake-leather shifter cover. After that the rest of the install was a breeze.

The shift knob fits like a dream, matches my car's stripes and won't fall apart like the stock knob. At first it felt a little funny, but I quickly got used to it. It really makes me smile. The shift knob is the center piece of every mustang, choose wisely.

BTW, while I was waiting for my shipment to arrive I was able to repair the broken shift knob with some 50¢ worth of super glue. I'm glad I made the "shift" to the new knob, even though the old knob is still useable, I won't be going back.

Turns out this is a common problem, here are some pictures from another unfortunate soul:

9-4-2010