2013+ Shifter Retrofit Project Pt. 1 - Preparation and Disassembly

For the P3 chassis there were 2 different shifter designs that were used throughout the years. For the 2011 and 2012 S60s, they came with the older “gated” style shifter. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the design, it is dated and somewhat clunky in comparison to newer shifter designs. One of the many benefits of owning a P3 is that many of the parts from newer models are plug and play on older models, meaning I can upgrade to newer styles for cheap. The availability of parts from online also helps with this process. For my retrofit, I decided I wanted to do a full Polestar shifter upgrade, with the stitched boot and Polestar stamped shifter. While I could go out and track down an assembly from a wreck Polestar, it is much easier to source all the parts separately.

It is worth noting there are 2 different shifter connector types. Some use a ribbon cable, and later ones were updated to a 2-pin connector. The ribbon cable can be used to install the glass Polestar shifter, but for all other cases it is better to use the 2-pin as it is stronger.

For this project I used these 3 parts:

1. 31367921 - This is the full shifter assembly, with the stock boot and shifter. I got mine for $80 from eBay off a wrecked car. The condition of the shifter and boot were 7/10, but this wont matter since they are being removed.

2. 31454423 - This is the new Polestar shift knob, can be found at Viva Performance and many other online retailers. (I even found it on Amazon)

3. 31367827 - This is is the Polestar shift boot with blue stitching.

For reference, here is the current shifter, vs the updated design.

Credit to P.Rico on Swedespeed for the image.

The first step was to source the entire shifter assembly, which was easy. Mine was a fully standard S60 shifter, with a leather boot and gloss black knob. The unit was fairly dirty and had some damage on the silver trim around the knob.

Cleaning the assembly. It had lots of grime on many of the crevices, most likely a smoker car.

The next step was dissembling the boot and knob. This process was not documented anywhere on the forums, but the process is fairly simple. If you are doing this yourself you are going to need two people for the knob.

Step 1. Remove the boot from the outside of the assembly. For this example I removed the boot from the plastic retainer, if you want to save the original boot, push the black tabs in on each side and push up!

Step 2. Moving the boot downward. In this step you will pry the two tabs on the white circle clip outwards. When they are out, push the boot downward away from the knob.

A small flathead was used on each side to pry the boot clips outward.

Step 3. The hardest part is removing the knob from the shifter ‘shaft’. The knob is secured with 2 clips on each side. Both sides, at the top, will have to be pried outward away from the knob. While doing this, the second person will have to squeeze the button on the knob and pull upwards.

Step 4. The cable can be unplugged from the base of the assembly and snaked up through the clips holding it in. From here all of the cosmetic parts of the shifter will be loose and easy to remove.

The black piece shown below the boot goes in between the knob and boot to hold the boot in place.

In part 2 we will be covering installing the new cosmetic pieces onto the shifter assembly.

The P3 Common & Uncommon Repairs Documentation Project

One of my goals with the website, as with many of my projects, is to act as a repository for information. My new endeavor, is going to be cataloging all of the issues I had come up with my 2012 S60 on the P3 platform. In each of my posts, I will try to describe accurately what my issues were, and how they were fixed. I will also try to include information from the repair sheets along with part numbers and labor time. My goal is to make it so that people encountering these issues will be able to find my site and use it to self-diagnose their car. Each repair will be a single post, with pictures (if needed). This content will hopefully make up a good amount of posts until I can start a new Volvo project.

Mini-Post: New side skirt.

Due to my own stupidity, I duffed the side skirt on the passenger side of my car. While I wait for my car to get back from the wrap shop, here are some pictures of the sideskirt, freshly painted in sapphire black metallic.