My soon to be 16 year old son wants to remove the t - type shifter handle and swap it with something "cool". He has a teardrop shaped knob and a matching pedal set he wants to use. How do you eliminate the park lock button you have to press to shift out of park/lock and do you recommend doing it?

Thanks Fiero!

I personnaly would not eliminate the lock button. If he likes to drive with a hand of the shifter like I do it would not be good if you knocked the shifter into reverse while moving. For a different look you might check on the shifters used in some of the newer GM's someone else might know, but they might be a replacement and some like the early 90 Grand Prix have a tear drop like shape.

Easiest way is to cut piece of steel pipe that is wider than the pipe inside the handle and tightly screw the new knob to this piece of pipe and then just drop the new pipe/knob setup on the automatic stick. Now if you just press down the new knob you will release the park swich and you can move the stick. If you wanīt to use a shaped knob that should point to one direction, you need to carefully cut holes on both sides of the origina stick and put 2 small screws on the new pipe to the same place where you cut the holes on the original stick pole. now the handle wonīt turn and it works by pressing the knob down. (thatīs what I did) and have been using it for 2 years now. Also I used a aluminium pole instead of the original plastic pole inside the original pipe, it works way better than the original. You may also wanīt to cut down the very long original pole at this point, I shortened mine about 4cm.

Sorry about my bad english but I hope you get the idea.

Mika Ruusuvuori
Finland

ps. did you people check the last Conan OīBrian show about Finland.....

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Pontiac Fiero GT 1987 3,0L Turbo (+500bhp) loads of modifications...

i'd recommend not eliminated it. if you ever drives in slippery conditions, having the ability to shift into neutral can save the car/you. if my shifter wouldn't lock in neutral i'd be throwing it into reverse or park which would be disasterous.

on another note, i'm not that old, and my first fiero you didn't even need a key in the ignition to get it out of park, my friends would consistenly "point it out for me" and it got beyond annoying.

instead i'd looking into the grand am/sunfire/cavalier/grand prix/etc style auto shifter. pretty well i direct replacement and can be picked up fairly cheap. i'd look for the leather-stiched one if possible, but they are all nice. i'm at school right now, but i'll post a pic when i get home if somebody else hasn't already.

You didnīt seem to get it, I have not removed the action of the swich, it just works different way than the original, not by pressing a button but by pressing the whole gear selector (the knob) down !

Mika.

Mika, If you have allready figured this out, what is it that your wanting to know????