Aftermarket Gear Knob

I have this shift knob. Yeah that whole mechanism is your reverse lockout, if you take off your boot by reaching under and yanking your whole center thing out (it just snaps on and off) you can take it out easy by sliding it up. The knob will not work with the lockout but the car doesn’t need it so just be careful when shifting to not put it in reverse.

Chris-T said:

I have this shift knob. Yeah that whole mechanism is your reverse lockout, if you take off your boot by reaching under and yanking your whole center thing out (it just snaps on and off) you can take it out easy by sliding it up. The knob will not work with the lockout but the car doesn’t need it so just be careful when shifting to not put it in reverse.

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This sounds like "speedrun to blowing up your transmission on the freeway". That lockout is what makes it possible to safely (and smoothly) get the car into 6th gear instead of accidentally forcing in reverse. At the speeds you're traveling while you're in 5th gear and trying to switch to 6th, you won't just hear a "nasty grinding noise", you'll instantly shred gears.

Edit: I bought a short shifter kit from Shark Racing and installed a fresh OEM Shift knob on it. I also know for a fact that there are shifter knobs out there with the right kind of groove to accommodate the lockout mechanism - it's an uncommon but by no means rare feature.

I had to run around without a shifter (or reverse lockout) on my 6 speed for a while & it was hard to find 6th. I decided to just give up after grinding reverse for the 4th time in a row, that reverse lockout is really helpful for the 6speeds.

Not sure if the 5speeds have one, but I don't see a reason you'd need to keep one on the 5 speed. other than stopping a 6pseed owner from trying to put your 5speed car in "6th".

The 5MT doesn’t have one

Yeah the 5 speed doesn't have one and doesn't need it, where reverse is where 6th would be and you shouldn't try to go there by accident.

I've seen very few shift knobs over the years that actually work with the 6-speed lockout. The best back in the day was from a Nissan Maxima. Nice weight to it, leather wrapped, etc but they're pretty much nonexistent now.