Thanks to the threads on here I was able to pull this today but what did happen is that some of the retaining clips that accept and lock onto the tabs on the back side of the panel pulled out of the dash instead of the tabs releasing. These don't come out very easily

What I noticed is that there is a lot of anti-vibration padding at critical spots and some of that is glued to these tabs.

Naturally that teared and pulled off so I'd like to replace it in a couple of days when my instrument cluster comes back from repair.

It's a very thin fibrous material that folds over the tabs and is glued in place.

Anyone with experience on this?

Thanks.

Bob S.

 

The clips are supposed to be on the panel and not in the dash. Pull all the clips out of the dash. Look carefully at the clips. I always put a little more bend in the clips to hold things tight. I am glad you got the wood off without damage as the clips are VERY strong!!

I cracked one of my wood panels when doing this but I was removing them because they had a crack anyway. A factory tech advised to apply silicone/dielectric grease to the clips to aid in sliding them in and to stop squeaking.

I use sticky backed felt to patch in any damping material. I add extra material to try and keep things quiet. I have always found that once a clip is snapped in and out the panel is never as tight as original. I found the sticky backed felt on EBay.
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Felt is a good idea as a replacement material for that factory padding behind the wood veneer. Contact cement should hold it in place if it is not sticky-backed....

 

I'm sorry but that makes zero sense to me.

Explain why the receptor for the flat post on the backside of the panel is supposed to pull out of the dash and the post is not supposed to pull out of the receptor?

I'm not seeing that and since 8 out of 11 worked a expected I'd say the odds are against that argument.

This is much thinner than felt and if I put thicker stuff in there I'm not sure what that will mean for future removal. Given the nature of these cars I think future removal is a likely proposition too .

It just doesn't make sense to me.

 

This panel really isn't wood veneer so much as it's a well engineered, cast metal piece with reinforcing ribs so that it would appear to be very strong and stable. The veneer , if that's what it is, is extremely thin with a heavy clear coat of "plastic".

 

Look at how the clips are made. They have sharp points to dig into the metal tabs on the back of the wood. In the picture below check out the marks the the clips made on the metal tab. I bend these points back so they really bite. It's much easier to do this with the wood panel off the car. Make sure the clip is straight and fully seated.



The part of the clip that snaps into the dash is made very different. It's not made to bite or dig in. It's made to snap in. It has spring metal legs that must be compressed to install. The legs then spring back out behind the dash panel forcing the wood panel against the dash tightly. Again check these metal legs for proper tension. I bend them a small amount to increase the tension but don't get rough and break anything. They don't really show good in this picture but you can see the sharp points that made the marks in the above picture.



Finally there is plenty of space for the felt. Just check the gaps before you take it apart. It's surprising how little of the panel actually touches the dash. The 4 metal tabs over the passenger airbag do almost all of the support.

And don't forget the dielectric grease on the clips. It seems to have worked I think!
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Your description seems to conflict with the pictures?

You show the receiving clips seated in the "dash structure" just as "most" of mine were. There are multiple parts to the base dash structure some of which are removable.
That's the opposite of what you're describing????????

I did notice the receiving clips which receive the flat posts from the backside of the dash facia panel have sharp, pointed prongs that go over the cloth vibration control pieces. Yet most of these are what released on mine??? Only two pulled out of the plastic dash base.

The receiving clips do snap rather easily into their plastic mounting points which I find to be rather weak in construction. It seems to me that this is the last place you'd want repeated installation/removal activity as it's the most likely to break/fail over time given the "excellent" quality Jaguar has chosen for other parts of the car.

I'll have another look today at everything but this just doesn't make sense to me and it certainly didn't function very well if what you're describing is the what was intended?

Is this something described by Jaguar themselves somewhere?

 

I could not find much of anything from Jaguar. After I got it all apart I looked at it to see what would be the best method to put it all back together. So far it's been a couple of years and while I had a few noises at first they have seemed to settle down and even pushing on the panels it is almost completely silent now.
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I'm done with the repairs that required pulling this panel.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...ies-usa-74438/

I'm going to leave the panel out for a couple of days in case there are any followup issues with that repair.

At this point I think I'm just going to push the panel back in place.

It still looks to me like the retaining clips get pushed into the dash and then the flat tabs of the panel are pushed into them as you place the panel into position.

 

Would love to refinish all burled walnut to a natural, non plastic, look !!

Thanks in advance for your help!!!

Regards,

 

It looks paper thin at the edges to me. I'd send it out to someone like Madera concepts and let them put new veneer of you choice in the finish you want on it.

I'm not a big fan of the greyed out wood look but it's how the car came and min's flawless.

 

Trade you, Ive got walnut.

 

I was thinking of birdseye maple or something even more exotic but thanks for the offer. I think I've got birdseye maple now but it's grey ...

Lacewood is cool too.

Wood Jewelry Box Wood Species

I also liked the metal finished STR I saw though I did notice that it got scratched abound the shifter and showed like hell.

 

Without the heavy UV blocking finish the wood goes to hell fairly quickly in the sun.

 

You do realize that it's all real wood and is not plastic??
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Yes of course. Just that it appears paper thin and would therefore be tough if not impossible to refinish. The plastic is the clear stuff on top and a very good thing IMO. But these guys may be able to do it or just put new veneer on the metallic base?

Madera Concepts - Jaguars