I recently ordered the boot that
@astjp2 linked to, and I made it work, but not without some reasonably over-engineered and under-thought-out modifications. I forgot to take pictures, so use your imagination. This is how I did mine.:
- Remove the shift knob from the transmission shifter. Mine is an aftermarket RockNob, so it comes off with an Allen wrench and some tiny set screws. Your's will likely be different.
- Remove the outer shift boot. The plastic base for it is held on with body clips, so it's pretty easy just to pop it out.
- Remove the center console; 10mm bolt under the front cup holder, and another next to the shifter inside the console.
- Remove all of the 10mm bolts around the edge of the inner boot assembly. I think there are 7, but I could be wrong.
- You'll have to loosen the 8mm bolts on the transfer case shifter bracket, since two of the screw holes for the inner boot assembly are sandwiched between the bracket and the tub.
- The inner boot assembly should then come up. Keep in mind that there's a thin gasket that runs the underside of it, and it is designed to stick to the assembly, so try to lift it up when you're removing it, and placing it down when installing, as opposed to sliding it.
Now, from here, if you bought yourself the Mopar replacement, assembly is just the reverse of removal. I, however, took the hard route.
The inner boot assembly is molded in such a way that the main, rigid part is hard plastic, and the boot itself is rubber, and put together to be a single unit.
I cut the rubber part out completely, since it was in tatters. I then took two pieces of some scrap 1/8" aluminum that I had and cut it into strips about an inch wide and about four inches long. There's a ridge that runs outside the edge of where the rubber was. I cut pieces of that away, along with the lip of the hole, so that I could place those strips down flat along the top and bottom edge. With some pre-drilled holes, you can use machine screws to attach them to the plastic, and then, in turn, attach, the boot to the aluminum.
I then ran a bead of black RTV along the underside of the seam. There was one spot on the top where there was still a hole about a half an inch wide and an inch long, so I cut a piece of the old rubber boot to fit, and RTV'd it into place. After allowing the whole assembly to cure, I put everything back together.
When shifting, you can hear some occasional slight popping noises where the accordion creases in the boot are bending in ways they weren't set up for, but it's very subtle, and probably not even perceptible with the vehicle started.
How long will it last? Dunno, but I was in a building mood this weekend, and figured "what the hell". Except for the boot itself, everything else was just scrap stuff I had lying around the workshop.