The plastic coating over the wooden shifter cover area is cracked of course, like all of them, but now chipping off. I took it off, and you can see it's sort of plastic over sort of a plywood. I was thinking of just chipping off all the plastic and hitting it with a few coats of polyeurathane. Can't look worse than it does now with the plastic coating all cracked.

Any ideas?

Jeff 1991 300d

replace it... They're cheap

__________________
1985 500SL Euro w/ AMG bits 130k
1984 300SD Turbodiesel 192k
1980 240D Stick China 188k
2001 CLK55 AMG 101k
2007 S600 Biturbo 149k Overheated Project, IT'S ALIVE!!!

And where did you find this?

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For Sale: 1982 MB 300TD
1995 Chevrolet Suburban 6.5TD

Sold: 1980 IH Scout Traveler- Nissan SD33T Diesel

You can replace it, but I don't know about the cheap part. Remove the plastic with finish remover and lightly sand with 220 grit and recover with varathane oil base varnish and it will look great!

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/189385-wood-restoration-my-300d.html#post1517457

As you can see here, I did all the wood in mine and it wasn't as hard as I thought! The trick is patience. I just went to Ace hardware and bought 2 Spray cans of wood stripper and a tooth brush and applied the stripper until I got all the plastic off. Then carefully washed the pioeces and let them dry thoroughly, sanded them VERY lightly with 220 grit and applied a mahogany stain in a very light coat and then when that dried in about an hour (the Sonoran Desert heat) I applied 3 light coats of Varathane to the wood!
Let that dry overnight or until it is completely cured and re-install!

Jeff,
The wood on the 124s has an absolutely bulletproof finish on it. I spent about a month getting it off. Here's what I did:
-Get as much off as you can with chemical wood stripper. Apply the stripper, then seal the whole piece up in a giant Ziploc bag and leave it overnight. It will dry, but you'll see parts of the finish have bubbled up. You can use an old credit card to gentle scrape/chip off these areas. After a while (if you're experience is like mine), you'll get diminishing returns .. i.e., the remaining areas of finish won't come off or bubble.
-Use a razor and gently slide it under the corner of any jagged areas of finish, then try to GENTLY pry the finish off in chips ... you have to be REALLY careful here because it WILL pull up veneer. If you see/feel it taking veneer with it, stop and come at it from another angle, or try the next step.
-Use a power dremel with a light sanding tool or even a heavy-duty polishing piece and slowly work down the thickness of the remaining finished areas. I did not take this all the way to the wood as I figured it would create uneven areas in the wood.
-Sand the finished areas with 320 grit ... if I remember right, I used 220 on a couple areas. After getting the finish mostly gone, I went over the whole thing with finer sandpaper (I think 1000 was the finest I used) until you have a uniform, fully stripped zebrano veneer looking up at you.

Maybe I was overly anal, but I'm very pleased with the way it ended up ... well, so far. I haven't finished my yet. I stained it and it looks really, really nice, but I haven't had a chance to spray with lacquer. I bought a large vat of precatalyzed lacquer (Magnalac) and a spray gun and will do it as soon as the weather is appropriate. Can't wait to get it done and back in the car.

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1987 300D, arctic white/palomino--314,000 miles
1978 240D 4-speed, Euro Delivery, light ivory/bamboo--370,000 miles
2005 Jeep Liberty CRD Limited, light khaki/slate--140,000 miles
2018 Chevy Cruze diesel, 6-speed manual, satin steel metallic/kalahari--19,000 miles
1982 Peugeot 505 diesel, 4-speed manual, blue/blue, 130,000 miles
1995 S320, black/parchment--34,000 miles (Dad's car)

do a search on refinishing here. There is a great DIY writeup someone put together...with pics...sorry too lazy to link it for you.

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85 300CD Turbo "Das Polluter" 230K sold for $3,000

98 BMW 323is

Bodhi, did you do just the console or did you do all the wood trim in yours? I'm afraid if I do only the console, that it won't match the other wood.

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

http://boostnbenz.1baddsm.com/DIY/Wood/

bam

I did the shifter piece and the piece over the cc controls. Both were cracked and I wanted them to match. I didn't have to worry about the asytray because I removed it and replaced it with a boost gauge. Eventually I will make a playwood + zebrano veneer mount for the boost gauge and 12v outlet and finish it the same way as the other two pieces so it should match pretty well.

I think I would go ahead and refinish all of it if you can ... that would make it much easier to pick a stain, rather than having to guess at what will match. Plus, there's really no way to duplicate that plastic finish, so the newly finished piece might reflect light a little different, or have a different "depth" to the finish.

__________________
1987 300D, arctic white/palomino--314,000 miles
1978 240D 4-speed, Euro Delivery, light ivory/bamboo--370,000 miles
2005 Jeep Liberty CRD Limited, light khaki/slate--140,000 miles
2018 Chevy Cruze diesel, 6-speed manual, satin steel metallic/kalahari--19,000 miles
1982 Peugeot 505 diesel, 4-speed manual, blue/blue, 130,000 miles
1995 S320, black/parchment--34,000 miles (Dad's car)

Interior: Wood Trim Repair/Replace/Refinish link thread
Interior: Wood Trim Repair/Replace/Refinish link thread

You should do all your wood at one time so your finish will match. It's really hard to match a patch job by doing this a piece at a time!