GBW

I got tired of the hacked up paint on my shift surround (5 speed manual) looking like hell, and decided that attempting to repaint it would just end up with the same hacked up appearance in a few months anyway. I saw a post on the B6 forum where somebody covered all their interior trim with black leather, and that gave me the idea that covering the shift surround with grey vinyl would do the trick. I had a spare gray seat cover, but I discovered that the cover did not have a large enough piece of un-perforated "pleather" to do the job. A quick visit to my local upholstery shop provided a scrap that was nearly perfect, especially the price - free - and the project was on.

I have a 2000, so removing the shift surround was easy - take off the shift ****, pull the boot up and over the shaft, then pull up the edge of the shift surround up until the clips near you disconnect, then slide the surround back toward you from under the ash tray, and you're all set. Next I removed the metal silver trim piece, by straightening the tabs on the back and lifting the trim off the shift surround (be careful not to bend).

The rubbery feel paint needs to get removed first, so I took some wet/dry paper and sanded that off. This made sure my adhesive has something solid to grab on to and removed any possibility of the adhesive loosening up the rubbery feel paint and everything coming apart down the road. You'll need several sheets of paper as the rubber feel paint really gums up the sandpaper.

At this point I put the new vinyl cover upside down on my workbench and placed the shift surround upside down on top of it, and traced an outline of the shift surround on the back of the vinyl leaving 1 inch of excess material around each side. This will leave me plenty of excess material to wrap around the edges of the shift surround and work with they vinyl.

Next you'll have to trim the edges of the shift surround about 1/8 of an inch on all sides to allow space for the vinyl to wrap around the shift surround and be glued. You don't want to see the exposed cut edges of the vinyl; you need to wrap it around the surround for it to look good. I marked 1/8 inch around the surround and used a Dremel to cut it back to the desired dimension. Clean everything up with a good paint prep solvent.

Place the shift surround (top side up) and vinyl (back side up) on some newspaper and apply the adhesive to the shift surround and vinyl. I used the 3M General Trim Adhesive (P/N 08088) which recommended two coats, alternating the spray pattern 90 degrees. After about 3 minutes the adhesive becomes tacky, at which point I put the vinyl on the shift surround cover, pressing firmly and removing any air bubbles. I gave it an hour at this point to set.

Using a sharp utility knife, I trimmed the excess vinyl from all exterior edges, leaving about 3/8 of an inch excess vinyl on all sides. I used my hot glue gun as I wrapped they vinyl around the back of the shift surround gluing the vinyl to the back of the shift surround. Next I cut out the hole for the shift **** and re-installed the metal silver trim piece.

I reinstalled everything back in the car, and it looks like this:
<a href="http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s189/GBW_Audi/?action=view¤t=101_1656.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s189/GBW_Audi/101_1656.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Nothing difficult or exciting, but if you shift surround looks pretty nasty, here's an option that will take future abuse.

ZB4rngs

NICE!! I need to do the same!