AR | GEAR JAMMER - Bronco 7 Speed Shift Knob

[Nosferatu]

If I swing by the shop, will you install it?

A knob in copper would open up my wallet for sure!

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[351W-Bronco]

If I swing by the shop, will you install it?

A knob in copper would open up my wallet for sure!

I vote for titanium myself.

 

[mspeter]

The billet Reverse Lockout will be a standalone part. You’ll still need to remove your OEM shift knob to perform the swap. Below is an initial render of the reverse lockout. It’s a different take on the OEM design. You can reach over the knob or rest your palm on the knob and use your index and middle fingers to raise and actuate it, or come underneath with your hand to the side of your shift knob. Either way, it’s ergonomically friendly.

Personal preference is an option for a normal round billet lockout. Not digging this asymmetric lift-collar design with the large forward facing tab.

 

[ATLBronco75]

Isn't Stainless Steel going to brand your palm? There's a reason my favorite ever shift knob was brass weighted Delrin.

 

[EIGHTLUG]

Isn't Stainless Steel going to brand your palm? There's a reason my favorite ever shift knob was brass weighted Delrin.

No, not necessarily. If your entire interior has been in direct sun all day, the shift knob would likely be the coolest to the touch item in the interior. If it's in the shade, but still 100+F in your interior, it will be even cooler than everything else. Read post 59. I've run 304 stainless weighted shift knobs in our race cars. It's an amazing material with a very low W/m-K. Not as low as Delin, but it's also not Delrin. It takes a considerable amount of heat to make stainless steel change temperature. Especially a chunk of it that fits in the palm of your hand.

 

[bcool2525]

I think what others are asking concerning touching the stainless steel is this: lets assume we have a car interior that is kept at a constant 60 degrees C, for 8 hours. After 8 hours, the vast majority of car interior surfaces will be up to the 60 C temp, and have thermally stabilized. So if all the items inside are the exact same temperature, then touching materials with greater thermal conductivity will cause a greater burn than touching something with a low conductivity. ABS plastic for instance, roughly has a thermal conductivity of 0.18W/(M*K). Stainless steel (304 grade) has a conductivity of 16.2W/(M*K). That is exactly 90 times greater, so it will transfer its heat to your hand 90 times faster, ouch. As part of my job as a engineer I help run a heat test chamber, and metals (even thick samples) are normally the fastest to thermally stabilize in the chambers.

 

[EIGHTLUG]

I think what others are asking concerning touching the stainless steel is this: lets assume we have a car interior that is kept at a constant 60 degrees C, for 8 hours. After 8 hours, the vast majority of car interior surfaces will be up to the 60 C temp, and have thermally stabilized. So if all the items inside are the exact same temperature, then touching materials with greater thermal conductivity will cause a greater burn than touching something with a low conductivity. ABS plastic for instance, roughly has a thermal conductivity of 0.18W/(M*K). Stainless steel (304 grade) has a conductivity of 16.2W/(M*K). That is exactly 90 times greater, so it will transfer its heat to your hand 90 times faster, ouch. As part of my job as a engineer I help run a heat test chamber, and metals (even thick samples) are normally the fastest to thermally stabilize in the chambers.

I agree with what you're saying. You're also comparing stainless to ABS. We're definitely not using ABS or any other plastic. But compare 304 stainless to aluminum or copper. Those two material are 250 and 400 W/k-M. In that comparison, 16 W/m-K is low. So, among all of the metals to use, within reason, 304 stainless is the one to go with. Titanium is a 7, but the cost is exponentially more.

Another step toward heat mitigation would be to use a ceramic coat like Cerakote. Which we have the ability to do.

304 stainless for this application isn't a new thing. There are literally thousands and thousands of shift knobs in this material out there, and to my knowledge, zero hand burns. That is probably also due to people in those hot areas already know that their interior will be hot and they plan accordingly. To be safe, we'll send each knob out with a shifter sack you can put over the knob and cinch around the neck for added protection.

 

[EIGHTLUG]

Here’s AR | WHITE BREAD

It’s your quintessential spherical cue ball, but with some added drip. Weight is right around that 1 pound mark, works with OEM Reverse Lockout, material is 304 Stainless. All of the features are post machined. It’s everything you want, and nothing that you don’t. All of the colors will be available. Retro style build, this is for you.

 

[RagnarKon]

Here’s AR | WHITE BREAD

It’s your quintessential spherical cue ball, but with some added drip. Weight is right around that 1 pound mark, works with OEM Reverse Lockout, material is 304 Stainless. All of the features are post machined. It’s everything you want, and nothing that you don’t. All of the colors will be available. Retro style build, this is for you.

Definitely like this one better than the first one. Excited to see what else is coming.

I feel strange for saying this.... BUT one of the issues I have with AR products in general is they almost feel TOO high quality for the Bronco. The Bronco has a certain ruggedness to it... yet AR products are all super high quality premium products. Feels out of place to me. Which I know is a super strange complaint to have, I'll admit it, and I almost feel bad for complaining about a product that is too high quality.

But only bringing it up because I'm hoping we'll have some options that feel more "at home" in the Bronco. (If that makes any sense at all, probably doesn't.)

 

[CarlSpackler]

Definitely like this one better than the first one. Excited to see what else is coming.

I feel strange for saying this.... BUT one of the issues I have with AR products in general is they almost feel TOO high quality for the Bronco. The Bronco has a certain ruggedness to it... yet AR products are all super high quality premium products. Feels out of place to me. Which I know is a super strange complaint to have, I'll admit it, and I almost feel bad for complaining about a product that is too high quality.

But only bringing it up because I'm hoping we'll have some options that feel more "at home" in the Bronco. (If that makes any sense at all, probably doesn't.)

I’ll take the quality all day long on something I have to touch every time I drive the thing. That being said, wood or leather and I’m all in.

 

[huey]

After an afternoon of soaking in a 160+ degree interior temp vehicle in Phoenix that knob will be very hot. I would get in the habit of throwing a towel over it to prevent direct sun exposure. After direct sun exposure the vinyl seats in my 2015 Passat would sear the flesh off the back of my legs if I were wearing shorts in the summer. My wife used to wear oven mitts driving a 1970 VW Beetle in Tucson because the wheel was so hot.

Fortunately I don’t live on the surface of the sun anymore, so knob temperature shouldn‘t be an issue for me.

In my manual GTI the shift knob gets very hot, I keep an old Oakley bag over the shifter and pull it off when I drive. It has become second nature now

 

[RagnarKon]

I’ll take the quality all day long on something I have to touch every time I drive the thing. That being said, wood or leather and I’m all in.

I'll admit I'm struggling to really articulate what I'm looking for.

It isn't that I want a low quality product. I want a quality product, but I also want a product that feels like it belongs in the Bronco. I don't want a super-glossy polished luxury shift knob like the Chisel knob, because it doesn't match the overall aesthetic of the Bronco (in my opinion).

Definitely agree about the wood/leather. Some of the early interior concepts Ford released on the Bronco had leather knobs and those were fantastic looking.

 

[huey]

can't wait for this, seems I have not purchased my last item from eightlug yet

 

[L8apex]

I think what others are asking concerning touching the stainless steel is this: lets assume we have a car interior that is kept at a constant 60 degrees C, for 8 hours. After 8 hours, the vast majority of car interior surfaces will be up to the 60 C temp, and have thermally stabilized. So if all the items inside are the exact same temperature, then touching materials with greater thermal conductivity will cause a greater burn than touching something with a low conductivity. ABS plastic for instance, roughly has a thermal conductivity of 0.18W/(M*K). Stainless steel (304 grade) has a conductivity of 16.2W/(M*K). That is exactly 90 times greater, so it will transfer its heat to your hand 90 times faster, ouch. As part of my job as a engineer I help run a heat test chamber, and metals (even thick samples) are normally the fastest to thermally stabilize in the chambers.

Just to be pedantic - It's actually the thermal effusivity that would cause the burn. Yes, conductivity is a part of that equation, but so is heat capacitance and density. When you take those into account with reasonable values the effusivity is ~14x greater for stainless steel compared to ABS. So much less than 90x.

For two semi-infinite bodies in good thermal contact; one at T_1, one at T_2 at t = 0. The temperature at the surface, T_s is a weighted average of the two surfaces effusivity.

In practical experience think grabbing a 10F steel pipe, vs a 10F piece of wood. Although both are the same temperature the pipe "feels" cooler. And as I said, yes conductivity is a portion of that equation, but doesn't tell the whole story, especially because its raised to the 1/2.

Link to material props: https://thermtest.com/thermal-resources/materials-database
Link to Effusivity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_effusivity

 

[EIGHTLUG]

I’ll take the quality all day long on something I have to touch every time I drive the thing. That being said, wood or leather and I’m all in.

The Organics line of shift knobs are on the road map. Leather, wood, carbon, for starters.

In the background, we're looking for local (to us) vendors that can support commercial level component manufacturing. I took Home Ec, but I can't French stitch leather to save my life. I'm also great at wood working but I'm not going to be able to turn a walnut block into a shift knob. What Andrew can design is one thing. What we can execute to the design is another. It's definitely going to happen, though.

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