Greetings all,
Swapping wood out of a wreck and looking for some direction on getting the wood trim out of a 126 420 SEL.
I have the obvious pieces mastered (door trim, glovebox, shifter plate and climate control piece) but the dash pieces???
Any help is greatly appreciated!

If you mean how to remove it without damaging it, I would try a razor blade or a cuple of sharpened putty knives, inserted between the trim and the dash. It is probably glued on.

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Semibodacious Transmogrifications a Specialty

1990 300D 2.5 Turbo sedan 171K (Rudolf)
1985 300D Turbo TD Wagon 219K (Remuda)

"Time flies like and arrow, yet fruit flies like a banana"
---Marx (Groucho)

I would doubt that it is glued on, I would not be prying on that wood unless you are working on the destination car removing the wood you wish to replace and don't mind breaking off pieces.

Matt.

If you pry it off, you WILL BREAK IT. The glovebox piece is the easiest. It is held on by screws on the inside lid of the glovebox. The driver's side is tough, as it is a large piece. You'll need to drop the cover under the dash and remove the screws accessible from behind the wood. There are small screws inside the air vent openings too. Then pull off the headlight switch and unscrew the large nut. Next, remove the cover at the ignition switch. There are screws behind it as well. If the wood doesn't move easily, you probably missed a screw somewhere. The passenger side wood is removed similarly, but is easier! You will need to remove the glovebox door to get to the screws though.

having had the dash out of my 300SD, i can verrify that these are held in by little black plastic nuts screwed onto a metal bolt. If you take a door pannel off you will easily see what i'm talking about. I beleive the nut size is 8mm. I did a write up on how to safely remove the center console wood trim(both around the shifter and climate control) without damaging it, so if you do a search for that it should pop up. If it doesn't email me and i'll track it down for ya To remove the bottom kick pannels(i presume you can acess the wood with these off, although i dont know for sure, there are a total of four philips screws at the top, and i beleive one or two near the bottom. They should be easy to find. Also, i beleive you can acess the screws inside the a/c vents without removing them, but use a magnetic screw driver with a strong pick up. If you cannot remove them with the vents in place, email me and i will send you a picture of the a/c vents with arrows showing where the releases are. If you look closely i'm sure you can find them yourself though. Although my car is an 83, i pulled the dash out of an 87 560sel, so all this should be the exact same. I hope this helps,
Ryan

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83 300SD.......sold
96 integra SE....sold
99 a4 quattro....sold
2001 IS300.......sold
2002 330i.........current.
2004 highlander limited....current.

Okay, you do not want to pry on the wood if it is held on with screws. My observation was that on American-made cars, dashboard trim is generally glued on.

They do things differently in Sindelfingen.

I suppose a really thin craft saw might be used to saw through the screws, but then you would need to get new screws and removing the old ones, which you will have beheaded, might be a chore akin to removing the tick's head from your Blue Tick Hound and therefore quieter, but no less unwise.

I apologize and hope my advice did not ruin anything.

__________________
Semibodacious Transmogrifications a Specialty

1990 300D 2.5 Turbo sedan 171K (Rudolf)
1985 300D Turbo TD Wagon 219K (Remuda)

"Time flies like and arrow, yet fruit flies like a banana"
---Marx (Groucho)