Hi everyone,

If you were wondering what happened with the wooden ebrake handles, I went back to the drawing board and made them a bit more robust. After some experiments with different woods I decided to use metal adaptors. So, I had some aluminum parts machined at my cousin's production machine shop in Oklahoma. They have been anodized black. That took awhile.

Here is what I'm working on. They are pretty much done, but need testing. If and when I get my MCS back from MINI of Mountain View* I'll complete testing for fit, etc.




*I took my MCS to MINI of Mountain View on for a software upgrade. When I picked the car up in May I alerted them that Voice Activation was not working. I gave them until now to get some experience and figure out how to do the software upgrade required. When I arrived on Wednesday I learned that they had yet to order the software, and had only attempted this procedure once before; it failed. So, if I'm very lucky, they will finish it today. Otherwise...

 

Beautiful work.

 

Thanks. I hope interest in these hasn't waned for the other folks.

 

Good luck with that! I took my MINI in for the software upgrade early on, in May when I first received it, and it was two weeks before I got it back. Your strategy of waiting until the dealer got more experience sounds good, but the record of one previous attempt that failed doesn't sound like it exactly qualifies, alas.

In the meantime, no waning of interest here...my bid is already in, as you know.

 

Looks gorgeous! Now looking at these I'm thinking the darker Cocobolo would go well with the English Oak I have. Let me know when they are ready to go.

 

Robin,

I'm impressed that you have refined the e-handle design. Looks good, seems sturdy with your current configuration. Let me know when things are finalized and you are ready to go into "production". I think the one-piece cocobolo is superb, and I will very likely order the red-tinted shade of cocobolo: please save me a piece. Great work!

 

Thanks. The Cocobolo seems to be popular. I did buy a fair amount of it. So there should be enough to go around.

When I can get things finalized will depend on when I get my car back. If all goes well, that will be Monday evening. However, their track record hasn't been very good so far. All I really need to do is check the fit of these handles. I was able to try one before I took the car in and the aluminum adaptor works fine. The stainless steel set screw holds it to the steel ebrake handle very well.

 

The handles are ready to go. One is sold already.

http://www.robincasady.com/ShiftKnobs/

Got my MCS back Monday night. The handles fit fine. Photography and web work has taken awhile.

 

Just got mine and installed it. Suberb work, Robin (as is your shift ****)! I'll put a link to my installation tips as well. The R56 and R53 are different, be warned.
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...d.php?t=123781

 

Thanks Newt! Were you able to pry up the bast to the boot without breaking tabs off? I'm still working on a way to do that. My screwdriver attempts broke a few tabs. However, it doesn't seem to make any difference as far as holding it in place. It has been fine without the tabs.

I bought a new boot ($30.25) to try different techniques. I'll post my results when I find a good method.

 

I did not encounter any tabs that hold the plastic frame (I'll call it) that the boot material is glued onto. If you look at the photo here from above you see that nothing sticks outside of the frame. If there are any they don't have to be pried loose. It's hard to tell that on the photo in the above post taken from the side. The thing just slips out of the console in one piece. Note that there's a separate plastic "tray" in the console that isn't attached to anything that the back part of the frame sits inside. That photo is in the link with the 2 other pix.