You cant remove the flippin ashtray mate, its the ashtray from hell.
However, you don't need to.
Pull up the silver surround plate complete with gaitor right up
Cut the one-shot clip that holds the knob and gaiter on the shaft
(Replace that with a small jubilee clip later) and slide the gaiter/knob/plate off
Remove the 2 x 7mm bolts that secure the front of the ashtray frame to the gear surround area and tip the ashtray up and backwards slightly to get it out of the way tho its not essential, and you cannot remove it even after this no matter what you try, the a/c unit would have to be removed so just tip it back. It wont tip back when its open BTW.
pull out the sound proofing (does naff all anyway, mine has none in there now) - theres a big browny-grey bit of hard foam, then 2 pieces of multi colored sponge block, throw them away cos they are never ever going to fit properly again anyway and disintegrate over time, filling the gearshift mechanism with tiny bits of crap.
Remove the circular rubber plate that sits over the gear shift centre bearing, keep that and put it back later, keeps dust and fag ash out of the ball joint.
Remove 2 10mm bolts fore and aft of a black plastic plate and lift it off, exposing the shift mechanism at last.
There are now 2 Allen-head socket bolts, one on top that sets forward and rearward stick position, put back centrally if ever disturbed, thats the standard alignment, tho you don't need to touch that one for this mod.
At the bottom, on the left hand side you will see a grey aluminum foot/bar that has the other Allen head bolt - thats the shift adjustment point. With the stick in neutral its accessible with a long-ish 6 or 7mm Allen or torx bit or key (its tight)
Slacken that bolt (don't remove) after marking the relationship of the little curved plate and the foot itself with a permanent marker (so you can tell where it started)
Slide the whole shift stick right slightly till you can see the stick is now just right of centre, slightly biased towards you. holding it there, tighten the bolt back up, gently at first so it doesn't twist the stick back to where it was (just cos of the clockwise tightening action) and check it still leans about 5 to 10 degrees towards the driver.
Tighten the bolt fully, its to be tight, but don't beast it to death cos its screwed into a aluminium foot that can strip if you really monster it up, just make sure its tight, but armed with a 6" socket wrench and bit you cant likely put enough torque into it to damage it anyway, I reckon its to be as tight as any engine bracket bolt if you know what I mean. Just don't go nuts thats all.
Try the shift with the clutch down, or even better drive it a bit with no knob to see what it feels like, it will be much better and improved further when the knob is refitted.
Rebuild is the reverse, fit rubber ring on top of shift ball bearing unit (white plastic centre bit), fit oblong top black plate with its 2x 10mm bolts, set ashtray back down and close lid, line up its bolt holes and put the 7mm bolts back, dont over tighten these or the ashtray will be a bitch to open. Drop a 1" jubilee or worm clip down over the shaft and let it drop down and sit on the rubber ring, drop the knob and gaiter on, push down slightly to make sure its home (slight click feeling) and slide the jubilee clip up over the 4 plastic fingers at the bottom of the gear knob assembly (you'll see what i mean) and with the screw part positioned at the rear, tighten the jubilee clip until quite tight. (if the screw/barrel is at the rear you wont feel the clip is there once the gaiter is down)
drop the gaiter and surround down and clip into place again. If you find that some of the clips for this (there are 4) stay on the surround when its removed, and some in the holes they were in, remove them from the lower holes by gently prising downwards with your fingers and catch them as they fall out below. They WONT come out from the top once they are left in the holes, but once you have them all fitted back on the four flat posts on the underside of the surround, and snugly home in there little housings, the surround will click into place like a breeze.
Try it out with now, and enjoy the easier 1 to 2 change!
Heres the bolt you need to loosen to adjust the 2nd gear position, you can see the stick is biased to the right, but not as much as it looks in the pic, thats just the angle it was shot at to show the adjustment bolt clearly and the stick is actually in reverse in the pic:
