My dash woods clear-coat is cracked straight across the middle, all the way to the right end.

I bought another off e-bay for $100 (cracked as well), and have shipped it off to Madera for complete restoration.

They'll remove the old urathane clear-coat, re-stain the wood to match the color depth of another piece I sent with the wood, and reapply new clear-coat.

The complete restoration back to factory as-new condition is costing me $311.00 + S/H.

 

Do you have a Website for them cause my piece over the glove box Cracked as well ..

 

Back in the early 1990s I had a cracked wood dash veneer panel and wasn't sure how to deal with it. This was long before the Internet and Google. A buddy of mine who was a woodworker hobbyist told me to remove all the wood panels and bring them to him. He would take them to his woodworking club and get his buddies to restore them for me. Some of them specialized in regluing, some in sanding and prepping, and some in staining and finishing. I felt I had nothing to lose so I agreed. They had the trim panels for maybe a week, then one night my buddy showed up with the finished product. All of those panels looked absolutely gorgeous, much better than they did from the factory. The grain details were much more evident, the gloss was thicker and more uniform, and they had added some strengthening epoxy backing to all pieces to prohibit future cracking. After I had installed all the panels back onto the dash, I couldn't believe how good it looked. My buddy told me that at least four different guys had worked on my wood, each one performing his own specialty.

The cost for this work? Zero. These guys enjoyed their hobby and refused to take any money from me. So I went to the local specialty wood store and bought about $75 worth of teak, mahogany, and walnut panels for them to use in their projects. They were very appreciative and I was delighted with their finished work....

The moral of my story? Find a local woodworking club with all the tools and knowhow. Those guys will do a whale of a job for you for a fraction of what you'll have to pay these highline companies....

 

http://www.maderaconcepts.com/

 

Leave it to Rick to come up with a double entendre when I'm just trying to help....

 

I had both dash pieces redone by Madera. One hint: Don't use a dealer! Contact them direct. They did a better job than the factory! I was told just refinishing the pieces would not make them match. Jaguar uses all grain matched wood. So my passenger side was cracked but I had to get the wood replaced and then refinished on both dash pieces. I paid about $350. The wood veneer was applied better especially on the sharp corners.

I have a STR with the grey stained birds eye maple. I was impressed when I got the wood pieces off because they are applied to a metal casting and NOT plastic!
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I received my dash wood back a week or 2 ago, and its gorgeous!

I had them do a special stain job to match another piece I sent them.
I'm waiting on felt tape I ordered from the UK, thats why I haven't installed it yet.

I think in a charcoal interior the wood needed to be darker than that honey color anyway.

I'll post pic's when I get it installed, for now, here are some of the wood off-car.
First Pic being "before"...

 

I managed to extract the vents today (see my thread on the vents).

And installed the new wood.

Pic 1 is Old below, New above.
Pic 3 is lower light, and I moved during exposure, thats why the Jaguar logo is deformed.

I may have the steering wheel refinished too, Madera quoted me $244.

 

Nicely done, new stain color is definate upgrade from stock.

 

Glen, that definetly looks awesome!! I would have the steering wheel done as well to finish the look.

 

I almost forgot to mention (and did neglect to photograph)...

The service manual I have leaves something very important out of the R&R of the wood, which if you're not aware of, you may severely damage your trim piece.
When you have all your vents out, and have removed the attaching screws, inside the passenger vent you will see what looks like a pull handle made of bent/formed stamped metal.

This hook is attached to a flat piece of stamped metal which has 2 keyholes in it that you cannot see.
It slides left and right.
Attached to the back side of the wood piece, screwed into the aluminum frame are 2 large bolts whose heads pass through the keyholes.

When that handle is slid/pulled to the right, it exposes the larger hole of the keyhole to those bolt heads, allowing the wood to be removed/installed.

When you get your new wood on, you slide that plate to the left which will lock those 2 bolts in place.

I'll post a pic later of the bolts I'm talking about.

 

This thread has been very helpful, I do however have a question. How do you remove the wood panel on the front dash in the first place, like in the pictures about. Does the wood just press on? Do I need to remove the entire dash to remove just the wood. I want to send my dash wood trim to Madera in CA, but cannot figure out how to remove the wood in these threads. Thank you guys for the help.

 

The wood is glued to an aluminum frame which form 1 assembly.
You have to remove the air vents which will expose screws (if I recall correctly).
Removing those vents is a PITA, you need a small pick to pry the tiny locking tangs out of their slots through the vent louvers. (use a bright flashlight to locate them, good luck with that)
But very important, under the far right vent, stick your fingers inside, and to your left.
You will feel a metal tang, pull it toward the opening that you're sticking your fingers through. Its a sliding metal "lock" device which has 2 elongated holes that engage 2 "rivet" like posts to lock that end in and down.
Best of luck, be brave

Also, of course, you have to pry the trip-meter switch assembly up, and out of the panel assembly.

 

Thanks alot. Last question...on the assembly is there a way to remove just the wood veneer that is glued from the aluminum frame? In the pictures above the wood was removed from the assembly...thanks again, sorry if this is rhetorical.

 

I doubt it, its pretty thin and delicate.

 

Bump to an old thread. For anybody looking for details of how to remove the wood trim plate, I've added pics of the process to this thread, post #24:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...2/#post2402006