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KITT and KARR Replica Guide:
Here is a comparison of the two types of shifters and some of their main components. As you can see, there have been a lot of changes to the design. Actually, I'd say the T-shaped shifter is a couple generations ahead in terms of engineering design simplicity and ergonomics, but unfortunately it is not authentic to KITT and KARR. Removing the Round Shifter Knob from a Donor Car Before you can install the round knob, you need to remove it from a donor car. First, let me say this: DO NOT TRY TO SCREW THE KNOB OFF OF THE SHAFT BY TURNING IT! This will only ruin the teeth inside of the knob.
With the retaining clip removed, the knob should lift right off with no trouble. Removing the T-Shaped Shifter Knob from Your Replica
Once the large staple is out, lift up and the knob will come off easily, leaving the stem inside the shaft. Pull out the shaft, since it doesn't work with the round shifter knob.
Installing the Older Round Knob on a Newer Shaft
Here is where things start to get tricky. You see, when Pontiac changed from a round knob to a T-shaped knob, they also decided to change a few things besides the knobs.
The first problem you will notice is that the knob itself sits too low on the new shaft. The second problem you'll see is that the stem is also too long. With these problems combined, the button ends up sitting way too high above the knob. First Problem: The round knob sits so low on the newer shaft because the groove in the newer shaft goes a lot further down than on the old shaft. If you take a look inside the round knob from its top, you will see that it has opposing metal teeth which fit inside these grooves. These teeth keep the knob from turning and from going any further down the shaft. If you examine the T-shaped knob from the bottom, you will see that it has plastic teeth which are a lot longer, and fill up the longer groove on the new shaft. To get the round knob to sit up higher, we need to fill up this groove. (making a new groove is an alternative, read on to see why I did not do this). Second Problem: The stem is too long. Third Problem: There is no groove around the circumference of the top of the shaft to attach the retaining ring (horseshoe clip). Fourth Problem: There is a hidden problem I've found during my work on modifying the shifter; the stem and the button do not stay down in the shaft. Particularly, if you shift into "Park" and then let the shifter lock into place, the force from the shifting mechanism can actually pop the stem and button up into the air After a lot of trial and error research, I came up with a solution which fixes all these problems. WARNING: Although this strategy worked great for my car, it may not work for yours. I take no responsibility for anything in anyway that happens to you or your
car if you follow these directions. The solution involves the following parts:
Cut the stem into two smaller sections as shown here:
The longer top stem needs to have some work done on it before it will fit through the aluminum adapter that you just created. You need to sand the little ball and the thick section at the top just until it will fit and move smoothly inside the adapter. Don't sand the top 1 cm of the stem, because that part doesn't ever need to fit inside the adapter, but it does need it to fit tightly inside the button. Also, don't sand off the little ball any more than needed to make it fit inside the adapter.
Now, if you want to, you can test fit everything before continuing: Once you've put everything together, you might notice the "Fourth Problem" that I described earlier. Here's how to see what I mean: When you move the shifter all the way into park, you will hear a thunk as the shifter locks into gear. At the same time, the button and stem will shoot up out of the knob and fall back into place. To fix this, take the adapter and the top stem back out of the shifter and place the top stem into the adapter like so:
So now everything works fine, but the knob doesn't stay on the shifter. Well, that's because you haven't attached the retaining ring (horseshoe clip). To attach the retaining ring, you will need to take everything off of the shaft (except the bottom stem, of course) and use a "Dremmel" tool to grind grooves in the top of the shaft. When you do this, don't forget to use eye protection!
Make the groove as close to the top of the shaft as possible, but be careful not to make the grooves too deep! If the retaining ring is in good shape, it shouldn't take much of a groove for it to fit into, and you do not want to accidentally cut the top off of the shaft. Now you can put everything together and be amazed (as I was) that such a little thing can cause so much work. Removing the Pontiac Emblem
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KITT and KARR had a round gear shift knob
that was only found in 1982 Firebirds with automatic transmissions. So if you really want your later year knight replica to be authentic, then you need to replace your snazzy T-shaped knob with the older round shifter knob.
With that said, removing the knob is pretty easy. First, very carefully pop the button out of the knob by lifting up on it. Be careful not to damage the button while doing this, because the button is harder to find (and thus worth more) than the knob. A suction cup or strong tape works well for this, because you can
attach it to the button face and pull up without scratching anything. The less attractive alternative is to use a small flathead screwdriver to pry the button out.
Once you have the button out (and the stem that often comes out with it), you should be able to see a horseshoe shaped retaining ring inside the knob. This ring is removed by pulling it
open and off of the shifter shaft. A special type of pliers is supposed to be used to remove this, but you can often just use a pair of needle nose pliers and a screwdriver.
The T-shaped shifter knob is even easier to remove. Simply pull the large staple out of the front of the knob (the side nearest to the dash). Don't pull out the smaller staple that is nearer to the knob's button. It holds the button in, and won't help you remove the knob.
After you get the top stem to fit and work smoothly inside the adapter, you need to modify the button clip. Simply cut it smaller, and make the end into a point. This is to make it possible to remove the button later and make it
function correctly with the adapter in place. If you don't do this, the adapter will interfere with the expansion of this clip.
KITT and KARR did not display the Pontiac emblem on their shifter buttons, so you will probably want to remove this logo.
To remove it, poke a small screwdriver or piece of wire through
the small hole on the inside of the button.