I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: Interior refurb
Hi I am slowly going through all the bits that my new to me, pretty battered NC, had to be fixed.
The steering wheel is quite worn and shifter knob is quite scratched on the top, but the leather is fine.
For the steering wheel, I’m looking at one of those “stitch over” leather covers in the region of ~£70/80, but I am worried this will make the steering wheel feel too bulky and look off. Does anyone have any experience with these?
As for the shifter, only the chromed plastic “crown” around the black gears “logo” needs replacing really, but I can’t find one online without buying the entire knob. I would not mind replacing this entirely if it wasn’t that I can only find black ones online, but my Niseko has a brown one so it would not match, and it will set me back £25-ish. Does anyone know where I could find a brown shifter knob, or just the chrome plastic around the top of it? Otherwise has anyone had any luck in repainting it somehow to a decent standard?
Don’t be put off by the price ( has gone down since I bought it ) - it is a nice shaped cover.
Some covers are not shaped and won’t fit around the spokes of the wheel.
I would just replace gear knob there is so many out there to choose from, steering wheel i have always bought the leather steering wheel with stitching as a DIY kit you can google YouTube the stitching pattern it is rewarding takes just over an hour but transforms the wheel and it keeps it OEM
My only advice for fitting ( over their included instructions ) - it is a two person job to make life easy.
The thread is a PITA for getting tangled during stitching.
The extra pair of hands allows a little tension to be kept on the thread and makes the job far easier.
To be honest - they are pretty quick at shipping - I was surprized to see it within a week.
There are other goodies on there too.
As long as you read the descriptions carefully - you can get some kit at very low pricing.
These air vent trim rings match my blue car and were £7 delivered for 4
They are anodized aluminium - not plastic - and are a perfect fit.
I’ve seen some spherical knobs not sure if they’re made ftom resin or wood. Appreciate you wanting to keep it oem but, it can also offer an opportunity to personalise ‘your car’ I fitted this…
Update: I ended up buying a cheapo gear knob from AliExpress. It’s black but I’ll try to see how difficult it is to take just the chromed crown out of it and put that on the original knob. Worst case scenario, if that fails, it only set me back less than a tenner delivered.
Still debating what to do with the wheel. AliExpress has wheel covers as cheap as £3 which surely will last a couple of years and I would not mind redo the job in a two years time for the same price if needed. However I cannot find a dark brown one at that price. Amazon has it but for £70.
Don’t get covers they look horrible and make steering wheel too bulky i still believe the DIY leather stitched on are great plus gives you amazing sense of achievement after or if money no object change whole steering wheel to a sportier one pleased you got gear knob sorted i meant to say there is YouTube vids how stitching works i have done ie twice now regards Richy TDA
Just to mention on replacement gearknobs is the weight and height (from AliExpress or anywhere else). It makes a bigger difference to the feel of the gearchange than perhaps some people realise.
So fit and take it for a drive to try it out. Obviously it needs to look right, but also feel right. For come context, I can’t recall what weight the std version on the NC is, but the ND OEM version weighs 300g. A surprisingly weighty item, especially given Mazda’s approach to ‘gram strategy’ so it was clearly important in development and gives a nice weight to the shift action
Oh, and all MX-5s use the same thread for the manual shifter, if you see one you like from another generation - I’ve used my favoured Jass Performance one on my NA, NC2 and now ND
As I’ve said my goal is to replace just the chrome plastic, but I will definitely weight both the knobs and see what’s the difference, especially if my plan fails and I will be forced to swap the knob altogether.
