Hi all! I have an '82 300 SD with the 126 chassis. I recently bought a new wood shift knob for the car but don't know how to put it in. I tried simply "twisting out" the old one but it doesn't want to come out. So I guess my question is, how do you remove the old shift knob? Is it locked in place somehow? Thanks for the help...

First you have to remove shafter wood cover,and loose the base then you can loose the hold down nut 15 or 16mm nut I don't recall,then unscrew the knob. have fun

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MB STARS Master Guild Technician,12 years MB tech
6 years independent shop owner

I recently found a nice Rosewood gear shift for my 500SEL in a junkyard and changed it in about an hour. What I did first was to ' borrow ' a new one just in case I damaged the old one as I too was not sure if the head came off the shaft. It does not. I found the head on the original leather one was bonded to the sahft and the only way to completely separate it was to remove it with a sharp hobby knife. This would leave the shaft in place but with no head allowing you to fit an after market head only, this was not what I wanted to do here though. When you have removed the wood trim, you will need to slacken off the locknut at the base of the shaft and this is best done with a 15 mm crow's foot spanner as there is not really enough room to squeeze in an open ended spanner ( read wrench ) Mine cost me only a few pennies and the effort was well worth it, now it's nice and smooooootthh !