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Hello, just thought I'd post this, as I struggled for so long to get it off. Somebody has most likley already done this..... And it's the stupidest thing, but you never know it might help someone as impatient and as stupid as me 
basically I wanted to remove the gearknob off my ep3 to replace as it looked tatty, The only info I could find was to undo the nut and twist the gear knob... I was told that it can be stiff but a bit brute force and maybe mole grips will free it.
i tried this many times, mole grips (at the time) made the situation worse as it was just scratching and making a sharp surface on the original gearknob, and considering i couldn't get it off it was just cutting my hands while driving.
I then spoke to someone who said that on some pre face lift models, the gear knob's are actually glued on, so this then made me realise that no matter how much I attack with mole grips it's not going to do anything. The only thing i can do is try melt the glue with heat.
i then got a good hair dryer and some oven gloves (it burnt me first time) and direct the heat towards the lower part of the gearknob. I did this for around 15 mins. It started to free up, but then stopped moving. So I kept heating it up.
once free I used mole grips and gripped the gearknob towards the bottom. Twisting it To the left (a lot of force is still needed even though the glue is melted)twist until it stops and gets stuck again... When it becomes stuck just apply more heat to loosen. Eventually 20000 slow full turns later and a car covered in metal shavings it will finally come free!
finally the ******* thing is off
then all is left after this is to take the existing nut of the gearshift, pull the gaiter down and
then screw in your new gearknob
i went went for a gearshift extension and a plain steel gear knob.
basically I wanted to remove the gearknob off my ep3 to replace as it looked tatty, The only info I could find was to undo the nut and twist the gear knob... I was told that it can be stiff but a bit brute force and maybe mole grips will free it.
i tried this many times, mole grips (at the time) made the situation worse as it was just scratching and making a sharp surface on the original gearknob, and considering i couldn't get it off it was just cutting my hands while driving.
I then spoke to someone who said that on some pre face lift models, the gear knob's are actually glued on, so this then made me realise that no matter how much I attack with mole grips it's not going to do anything. The only thing i can do is try melt the glue with heat.
i then got a good hair dryer and some oven gloves (it burnt me first time) and direct the heat towards the lower part of the gearknob. I did this for around 15 mins. It started to free up, but then stopped moving. So I kept heating it up.
once free I used mole grips and gripped the gearknob towards the bottom. Twisting it To the left (a lot of force is still needed even though the glue is melted)twist until it stops and gets stuck again... When it becomes stuck just apply more heat to loosen. Eventually 20000 slow full turns later and a car covered in metal shavings it will finally come free!
finally the ******* thing is off
then all is left after this is to take the existing nut of the gearshift, pull the gaiter down and
then screw in your new gearknob
i went went for a gearshift extension and a plain steel gear knob.
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