Beware that there are 2 different types of gear sticks. One is a single piece including the fork and the other is a two piece affair held together with a roll pin.
My stick is the two part variety and the 5-speed Alpine type looks the same, according to the Haynes manual. My plan was to obtain an Alpine stick with a decent ball and socket and dismantle it to fit the Murena top half and knob. Has anyone tried this? I know Simon still list them but they are 117 Euros.
First thing - although the early cars had a split gear lever with spring loading and you have to push down to select reverse, the detent is only a small plate at the base area of the lever, and the action is not required at the gearbox. If you remove the detent you can have a solid gear lever and it will work just like the later cars. So if you have a split gear lever that was breaking up or coming a part, simply weld it up solid and get rid if the detent.
Second, the gear lever knobs, of which there were two types - the common round knob and the thin 'trigger' type often fitted to Belgian spec. cars, are simply a shaped rubber sleeve glued on to the shaft. You can either purchase a new one if they are still available, cut off the old one and stick the new one on, I did this to my car many years ago when the original knob broke up, or replace it as follows.
Finally if the knobs are no longer available, another easy way to replace them is to cut off the old knob, cut a thread on the top of the old shaft and fit one of the accessory gear lever knobs with self cutting sleeve, like we used to do when replacing manufacturer knobs with special wooden or leather knobs that had the car badge in the top.
Roy