Cracked Wood Trim on Shifter & Dash

im thinking just remove it & replace it or just deal with it ......nope cause its cracked under the speedo also can i heat it & remove it ??

BigRay1125 wrote:

im thinking just remove it & replace it or just deal with it ......nope cause its cracked under the speedo also can i hot it & remove it ??

Yes. but heating it up might damage the finish. if you plan to repair it anyway,then it might be ok. either way,its a big job. maybe replacing it is cost effective. have you spoken to the manufacture? they might have a spare dash only piece laying around to sell you???

BigRay1125 wrote:

im thinking just remove it & replace it or just deal with it ......nope cause its cracked under the speedo also can i heat it & remove it ??

Big Ray: To be quite honest with you, we experimented with several different methods in order to remove the old woodgrain kit, including heat, and nothing really seemed to work except elbow grease and lots of patience. If you should decide to remove your old kit, I urge you to dismantle your dash before undertaking the project as that will make the job considerably easier IMO. Good luck to ya!!!

ghpcnm wrote:

BigRay1125 wrote:

im thinking just remove it & replace it or just deal with it ......nope cause its cracked under the speedo also can i heat it & remove it ??

Big Ray: To be quite honest with you, we experimented with several different methods in order to remove the old woodgrain kit, including heat, and nothing really seemed to work except elbow grease and lots of patience. If you should decide to remove your old kit, I urge you to dismantle your dash before undertaking the project as that will make the job considerably easier IMO. Good luck to ya!!!

Wow thats some good advise buddy!! Youre so cool!!

THANX for the advise i mite just deal with it ...its been there since i bought it in 07 so why worry now

I don't blame you one bit !

Found the item at www.carid.com, had to chat with the guy to find it, the part number is 0236-02CS for the honey burl shift surround unit, cost was quoted today at $39.00 a coupon code was mentioned and is AK886,( the initials and phone extension of the guy I was chatting with)
Hope this helps.
Don

I have a 97 and I can tell you because I was sitting here picking it all off piece by piece for about 2 hours that it was real wood. Once I got through the coating, this stuff was splintering apart. Very thin. Mine started cracking and after looking around a bit, I decided it was not worth it and basically just removed all the trim wood and painted it.

I wish there was more out there for my car. It hard to find stuff for my gen.

I just pulled mine and in trying to get the remaining plastic off, find that there is a microscopic layer
of wood bonded to an alum panel that is encapsulated in clear plastic- a real pain to get off, BTW it is
a 98.

Sorry for resurrecting yet another older thread, but I just pulled a shifter surround from a Riviera at a local "pick-and-pull" and it is not aftermarket and is definitely SOLID and thick real wood.

It was glued and held on with aluminum bent tabs to the plastic surround and had the shift indicator window glued to the rear of it. It was definitely factory and not aftermarket and is not a laminate. It is about 1/8" thick and was integral to the shift surround.

This surprised me as the two other other OEM "wood" shifter surrounds I have seen so far on wrecked 96+ Rivieras in the yards had very worn and cracked wood surrounds that were clearly thin wood laminates or plastic over an aluminum sheet. Usually most of the "wood" was worn off leaving just the metal base.

This is a much different piece, and the console is different as well from a 95. The 95 has the shift surround flowing as one colored plastic piece up and around the console armrest lid release button.

This solid piece of wood instead was recessed and replaced the shifter area instead.

I'll take a photo and post a picture. But it appears to be a solid piece of wood, and very nicely finished.

I don't know what year the Riviera was that I pulled it from unfortunately. If it is still there in a week or two when I go back, I'll try to remember to check.

But it sounds like one or more years briefly had thick real wood at least for the shifter surround.

Al

Some photos. Not sure if this is different from the majority of the OEM wood/plastic-wood trim for the other years and a one or two year oddity, but it sounds like it is different than what most have been describing? I thought it was interesting and different enough to make a mental note of it when I gave it a yank and it came right off and looked like real and thick wood.

You can see that the piece of wood is backed by a very thin piece of what appears to be aluminum, but is just shy of 1/8" thick wood, not a thin laminate and not plastic.

As I don't have any other of the wood/plastic pieces to compare it to, I am coming from this from some degree of ignorance of how the other pieces may be built or look when in good shape.

But I looked at it some more, and it is clear that the wood on this piece is also "encapsulated" with a plastic finish like most interior wood finishes.

But the underlying wood does seem much more thick than a think laminate. If you look at the photo below, you will see an oval hole. This hole is probably about 1/16" deep into the wood, and at the bottom of the hole I can still see natural wood grain. So in this case, the wood base is pretty thick.

Don't know if that helps, or if this is typical for all the other wood/plastic surrounds, but some additional info for those interested.

Al

Hmmmm... I own two 97s and neither of them are like that. Mine have super thin sheet of wood covered by enamel, with aluminum underneath. I used a scraper blade, goof off, and steel wool to get all the wood off so now it has a brushed aluminum look that i like a lot.
Was it a '95 that you pulled that off of in the yard? Besides being much thicker, that is also a darker colored wood than what was in mine.

No, I have a 95 and the 95 entire console shift area is just a solid piece of plastic that is the same interior color as the rest of the console. 95's have no wood trim at all.

This Riviera had the 96+ dashboard with the later radio, wood radio and shifter surround. Not sure what year it was though.

Perhaps it was a 96 and 96 is the lone year made like this? I'm not sure at this point since I don't know the year of the one in the yard.

Al

I wonder if in '96, since the supercharger was an option, if the supercharged ones got a little bit nicer trim package?

I believe aside from the wood trim around the stereo, any other wood was applied by the dealership. My car is a 95 and had real wood woodgrain thats pretty thick when it was bought new. It looks like new so the quality of the kit was pretty high. I think it all depended on what the dealership used. As far as I know, there was no factory wood grain aside from around the radio on the 96+ cars only.

The construction of the console area around the shifter on a 95 and the 96+ car I pulled this from is completely different.

On a 95, the interior colored plastic shift surround is one smooth piece back and up around the armrest release button. On the later models, the wood/faux-wood shift surround is a separate piece.

It is interesting to note that in a thread elsewhere here about disassembling the console, it is mentioned that the later wood/faux-wood shift surround can be removed by removing some push-nuts from some rear studs to lift it off. This particular piece was glued and mounted with bent metal tabs, and the shift indicator window had been bonded to the rear of the piece. So it was built to be a semi-permanent and non-removable part of the console. So if the description that some of these wood shift surrounds can be removed by undoing some push nuts, that is another interesting distinction because this example doesn't seem to have that option.


95's had no wood trim from the factory AFAIK.

Has anyone picked off the plastic wood pieces and polished up the metal surface underneath? worth it? any final clean up pics? Over the last couple months, mine has beginning to splinter and i've began picking at it. Considering cleaning it up and polishing it and seeing what happens

I did it and i am pretty happy with the outcome. I dont have any pics right now but i could take one. I used a flat scraper blade, steel wool, goof off, and a shop vac and it took me about an hour. Took the steel wool to it going all in one direction after i got everything off to give it a brushed aluminum look.

that's what I am going to attempt. That and two tone the interior. Black n Tan. Yeeeeeeeeeahhhh.


I have some black and red interior parts from the last Riv that I am going to be swapping in. Can't wait for Spring/Summer redecorating. I want to get all that muppet fluff BS upholstery out and replaced with carbon fiber.

Thats going to be awesome. Is your interior currently tan? If so, i would be very interested in buying some things off of you if you decide to swap other stuff in...

Quote :

Has anyone picked off the plastic wood pieces and polished up the metal surface underneath? worth it? any final clean up pics?

THATS WAHT IM TALKIN BOUT

Sir Psycho Sexy wrote:

Thats going to be awesome. Is your interior currently tan? If so, i would be very interested in buying some things off of you if you decide to swap other stuff in...

Dude. Yes. Let's trade.

..... that's a die hard motorcyclist there, riding in 10F