What is the finish on the shifter wood trim piece ? Is it lacquer? I know the cracks on this trim is a common issue, but I'd like to refinish it like new and was wondering if there's a better modern finish that won't crack.
Has anyone used this:
Thank you.

 

It's polyester. It's a difficult environment seeing 40C+ temperature shifts regularly for 20 years and UV. It should be hard and not easily scratched, yet soft enough to ride with the underlying wood or aluminum when thermal expansions and contractions occur (or, alternatively, match the expansions). And the bolts around the shifter shouldn't be overtightened causing stress concentrations. In any case, see the thread

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-225884/page2/

Sometimes the cracks are 'easily repairable' (i.e. the veneer is thin, the crack sometimes does not proceed through the veneer). Sometimes not...

Not.

In this case, you could take the sanded wood dust, mix with a small amount of pva glue and fill the cracks, matching colors. That is very difficult and not guaranteed to work...

The totalboat polyurethane thermal expansion coefficient is about 10X that of a polyester coating. Polyester is much closer in thermal expansion to aluminum and plywood (shift surround). Don't know how this would affect things in practice because I think the stress from bolting appears to have caused most of the shifter problems...