SUCCESS !
I tried the method shown in that Megane video and pulled the knob with both hands while turning the knob some millimetre in both directions. and WHAM ! suddely I sat there with an entire assembly in my hand trying to understand what had happened :crazy:
Well it turned out nothing was damaged [relief].
I had not understood how the assembly looks like.
The knob, the reverse shift ring, a spring and an outer gear stick tube along with the leather gear gaiter comes out as a complete assembly.
Below I will call it a "sub-assembly".
So before pulling on the knob it is important to loosen the bezel around the gaiter so that the plastic tabs that hold it does not break when the sub-assembly comes loose. In my case the entire gaiter assembly bezel popped off as I pulled the knob, luckily all the tabs remained OK.
As you see here from the side the knob,lever,spring, shaft and gaiter is one assembly:
In this situation you remove the old knob from this secondary shaft by turning it some 90 degrees to the side. For simplicity, at this moment do not mess with the other parts of this sub-assembly but directly replace the old knob with the new knob (turning it in place) without removing he spring or reverse lever. Make sure that the new knob comes in the same direction as the old one did. It can be installed backwards by mistake.
Understanding how the assembly works:
To make sure that you did not install the new knob backwards; When you look at the knob from the rear after having installed it on the sub-assembly, the little extension at the bottom of the shaft shall point to the right. That extension is a "gear stick stopper" (see photo) that when the assembly is installed prevents selecting reverse gear when the spring loaded lever is in the unpressed position. When the lever ring is lifted upwards it will lift this shaft upwards which will allow the stopper to move past a wall (see photo) down at the shifter assy when you engage reverse.
Now install the gear stick assy back onto the gear stick shaft:
Place the outer shaft over the stick shaft and make sure that the mentioned "stopper" at the bottom of this shaft points to the right. Press down the knob onto the shaft stick until you see the bottom stopper sits slightly left of and above that side wall mentioned.
Now give the knob some hard blows with your hand from above so that the outer assembly becomes seated fully down onto the shift stick. You can now try to select reverse and can confirm that the stopper prevents engaging reverse unless you lift that lever ring around the knob. All fine. Now position and press down on the bezel tabs so that the leather gaiter become installed back in place. You´re done !
Here is a photo of the knob I installed.
This knob is a plastic replacement I found on Ebay
http://goo.gl/JCeUsP that happens to exist in beige color. The gear indicator plate is incorrect however.
The 6-gear scheme is ok but the reverse on my Scenic is towards the bottom right, not upper left.
But I don´t care and the female friend owner of the Scenic has been briefed on this change in appearance. All are happy. I like the plastic knob better than the leather one. Better feel in changing gears.
This shows new knob compare to old:
. I'll hope for a few more replies that give less destructive advice then finally try your multigrips solution with fingers crossed.
