This is the post I was looking for. Asking for some input from anyone who was disassembled and reassembled one of these knobs. I sold my original knob and did a little restoration project. The end result will be a knob that is NLA from Porsche. I actually like the look and feel of the stock knob. Sold the premium metal one with the crest because I didn’t like the feel. The GT3 and turbo have a similar knob but the insert is one piece without the additional black plastic pattern insert. Still available but only in black leather. I needed graphite gray. Porsche made this part but only in 1999 for the 996 and it’s NLA. So I bought a beat up part on flea bay with this one piece insert. Sent it to Dallas Custom Wheel and now I have this...
I stripped the original insert down and did about 10 light coats of what I thought was a close match to alumalook. Wet sanded in between coats. Filled in the pattern with black and the three good coats of clear.
Here’s the problem. I can’t get the insert back in! Seems like it would be pretty straight forward. But it’s not. Anyone have thoughts? Any tips/tricks? This sucker won’t go back together and I don’t want to mark up the insert by forcing it. I’m sure the answer is going to be force it back in but looking for some one with experience before I damage it.
That’s as far as I can get it back in putting a ton of pressure on it.