I know that the wood trim around the speedo and vents pop out, and the shifter plate comes out w/ a pull as well, but what about the wood panel covering the passenger airbag, or the ashtray cover and the door trim pieces?

 

Mazarin, as for the ashtray cover, that wood is glued to the cover plate and the only way to get it off is to destroy the wood (unless you can figure out how to loosen the glue without hurting the wood). The same goes for the shifter assembly. All that wood is glued in place. I'm pretty sure the rest of the wood pieces are the same way for the dash.

As for the doors, you need to pull off the door panels and then if you look on the back of the door panels, you will see some fasteners holding the wood pieces in place. I am not sure if there is metal backing to these pieces too or not.

I guess I need to ask what you have in mind. maybe then I can give some better guidance to accomplish what you are after.

 

The finish is cracking on them and the door panels are fading. I always wanted the alcantera package but was never able to find one that wasn't on a coast. What I'm pondering is carbon fiber overlay. And not the cheapo - 3M overlays. I want to pull the pieces cut and fit the actual fiber cloth over the wood - sanded down a bit first, of course.

I don't need to remove the wood from the mounts. I can wrap the plastic to avoid issues w/ the CF setting. I'm going to vaccum-set everything.

 

mazarin, you will need to do some trimming of the pieces just because of wrapping the carbon fiber around the parts. As for the panel over the passenger side air bag, take a good look at that. The cover is just snapped into place, but you don't want to probe too deep into the car as the airbag is underneath and going too far could have fatal consequences. Once you get the passenger side cover off, you can remove 2 screws to remove the passenger side vent cover.

Wish you luck with the project. Should be an interesting look. Me, I am looking to pull out the plastic vents and convert them over to the burled wood. Lots of time will be spent getting all the details done. Granted, I would probably do all the wood at the same time to make sure that all the wood matched. We'll see. Granted, I would probably make it solid wood vice the venier that is in the car now.