Best repair for broken heater knob?

My heater knob broke into 1 large and 3 small pieces around the base the base. Sue Miller advised replacements are not available. So is there a suitable repair, replacement knob or knob/cable replacement? Has anyone had success in producing a replacment? I’ve ordered an ALUMLITE Super Casting kit to give it a go and try to make the base of the knob. Has anyone had success using their kit? I saw this demonstrated on the Unibrain Elan web page.

[u]http://www.unibrain.org/v/motorsports/elan/restoration/assembly/casting[/u]

I’m not connected in anyway with ALUMLITE. Just trying to accomplish a suitable repair.

John
36-6453

The best repair I’ve found is to stay dialed-in to eBay.

They’re scarce to be sure, but I eventually found one for about $35 IIRC.

You can use their Save Search function and let them do the looking for you every day.

SHR

I found the Paul Matty choke Knob/cable to be a good replica.

If you have a lathe available, try machining a knob from black Delrin/Acetal.
Regards,
Peter.

I used a Triumph knob and ground down to shape… can only claim ‘similar’ though. Replaced both heater and choke to match.

Vegantune fitted an alternative cable when they last did some refurb on my car, but it was a stranded cable. After a while it woul;d no longer PUSH the heater valve shut.

I thought of fitting a pull back spring, but in the end as I had insisted on them returning to me any originals of bits they changed, I re-fitted the original single wire push-pull cable after replacing the outer bowden cable with the outer of a bicycle brake cable.

Any small machine shop or model enthusiast should be able to cut you a new knob from aluminium rod. I seem to recall it has a D shaped hole to fit the shaft, which might be a bit tricky.

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I like the idea of the moulding kit you found though.

Long ago I made a new gear-stick knob from cast perspex, with elements of my history embedded in it, but alas the perspex was not strong enough for that task and it sheared across.