[jakeru]

I went though this process of restoring my similar 2001 boxster shift knob, and that silver-painted plastic trim piece is simply pressed in to the hard rubber knob frame. The leather is wrapped around the frame and tucks in underneath the trim piece. The shift pattern insert is glued (with a thick, flexible and removable-grade adhesive) onto the trim piece.

The silver-painted plastic trim piece just pries off/away from the rubber frame. I'd recommend starting at the bottom area on one of the sides, and once you have a start, work the gap gently around the rest of perimeter, a little bit at a time.

Be very careful if using metal tool not to dig into the plastic edge, or the leather. Using wood or plastic will be safer. I think I used a butter knife very carefully, to get it started also. One I had it started, I recall stuffing in a bunch of toothpicks into the gap, whereever I could.

When you get the trim piece removed, it will be much more flexible, which makes it easier to pop off the shift pattern insert piece.

I'll see if I can find pictures of the process. I do have a readily available picture of the completed job (I also refinished the leather).

I refinished my trim piece using a silver paint as basecoat, and then clearcoated it with a 2-part clear. Turned out nice and should be very durable (probably more so than original!) The shift pattern insert is a transparent acrylic-like material (with painted black and white background and insert pattern at the back, so to restore that, I mostly just polished the front face, and added some extra black paint back there to touch up the black background.