never found it that hard myself, hardest part is getting the sound deadening off the bulkhead cause the screws are always rusty as hell.
taking battery out takes it 2 seconds, then remove the sound deadening. Unscrew cable from gearbox. Then inside take the plastic trim round the cluster off, take the clocks out. Pull old cable out from engine bay side and feed new one in, bit of wd40 on the seal so it pops in easier. Then put dash back together, then put cable in gearbox and tighten up the cap by hand. Done. Certainly easier than a clutch swap lol, just about anything i can think of is easier than a clutch swap
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To change the plastic worm drive thing, once the cable is out the box if you look down slightly from where it slots in, on the rear of the box there is a bolt (10mm iirc), undo that but not all the way or the oil comes out - undo it a bit and keep trying to pull the bit the cable screws onto up, it will come out before the bolts backed all the way out. Then you can pull the worm drive out and replace everything.
Of course before doing all of that you could just unscrew the cable from the gearbox and cable tie it out he way so its not flapping about, then go for a spin and see if the noise has gone away without the cable spinning. Its possible its not the cable in which case don't bother swapping it, just put it back.