Benzmac, short of replacing the interior door trim, is there any effective way you or anyone else knows of to reattach the lower part of the armrest and the lower part of the trim panel. The little plastic hooks have broken off on the bottom retainers. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. BTW it's my 89 300e. Also any ideas on what that panel might cost from MB, or is there any other outlet other than the junkyard??
Thanks again. BTW, when the machine shop left out those contact pads, did I suffer any damage to the lifters. They look OK visually. Thoughts?

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Jeff L
1987 300e
1989 300e
1987 BMW 325

hi, it is me again!!
I had the same problem 18 months ago and solved it (permanently)by putting self tapping screws in from the back of the panel cost ZERO!!!It has stood up to all the abuse only 3 kids can put it through.
hope it works foryou too!
hamish

Screws no problem. it's the right angle hooks (plastic) which hold the panel to the inner door panel sheetmetal that have broken off. Maybe JB Weld will do the trick??

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Jeff L
1987 300e
1989 300e
1987 BMW 325

Jeff,
I had the same problem on my 87 300. The hook on the arm rest had broken, leaving the top bolt and aft hook, so the arm rest kind of flopped when pulled. It might be fixable, but takes luck and ingenuity. I had enough plastic stucture left on the arm rest that I was avble to fabricate a new hook out of .080 1/4 hard stainless sheet. I drilled two samll holes through the stainless and then vaery carefully match drilled two small holes into the remaining plastic on the arm rest. I finsihed it off with two part epoxy before installing screws. Everything worked fine, but it does take time and luck. Hope this makes sense, cause I'm afraid to take the panel off to take a picture for you! I think one of the hardest things is for the average joe to access material that is srtong and can still be worked with normal shop tools. If you don't have an aircompresser and die grinders, I would not try it. I can mail you some metal stock if you want to try it. E-mail me at home via the member listing info. I'll also look for posts.

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Deezel
87 300TDT
150,000 miles