ICLEANED, VACUMMED, CLEANED, VACUMMED, CLEANED SOME MORE, and armor alled (s?) a lil bit. took all the HVAC tubing out, and stuck the vacuum hose in anywhere I could to suck out that 17 year old dirt.
ANyways... you can also see in the last picture in my last post, I scraped out all of the old, deteriorated foam rubber tape/gunk and put some new, thicker stuff nack in.. I looked for anywhere that the dash rested on metal, and covered it with foam rubber. I IMMEADIATLY noticed a difference... driving my car on the wonderful Idaho Highways, I didnt have that annoying rattle on the right side of the dash... ever get so mad you just hit it with your closed fist... ya... NO MORE RATTLES and Squeaking from the dash. YAY!
So, with my center console out, the next project was to replace the shift boot. What a pain in the BUT! (__!__)
Odly enough this is the only picture I could find of the old boot:
Here is the console turned upside down... two screws and carefully pry it up:
and it pops out.
two rings pressure fit together and secured with staples
out they come and
here is a shot of the old nastiness, and the new hotness
If there ever was a time to be ambidextrious, this woudl be it... hold the boot, top ring on the outside and then work the inside ring inside the boot and all the while keeping the corners lined up.
5 tries and you finally get this....
I put the staples back in, being VERY careful not to let anything slip apart, then where the extra material flapped over, I applied some spray glue
nice n clean and very secure.
I had to put it back in the console to see my finished work:
(I figure this is the perfect time to mold the "beauty ring" around my head unit so this will of course come back out until that's finished.)