I've been driving happily with my Mk2 empeg for almost 3 years now (!!), but it appears that I'm having increasingly annoying problems due to the known-flakey connectors on the back of the sled. This has led to everything from popping speakers to the headlight sensing wire not working. I can usually pull the stereo, stick my hand in, and fidget with the wires. This will fix it for a day or two, then it all starts again.

Now, if it were easy to disassemble my dashboard, I'd just pull it out and drop in the Mk2a sled I got along with my spare empeg. However, it looks to be somewhere between annoying and amazingly difficult to pull this off. It looks like the BMW Z3 center console is a single piece going all the way down to the armrest. Yuck.

So, what I'm looking for is:

- a (hopefully non-destructive) way to extract my current sled, which seems to be precariously attached only at the top front corner, anyway. I can't seem to get a screwdriver in well enough to pry back the tabs holding the sled in place.

- some hope that I can shove the new sled inside and get it locked down, only pushing the tabs with a screwdriver or something.

Alternatively, if anybody has an pointers on how to disassemble a BMW Z3 dashboard, I'd appreciate it. I've dug all around the normally useful MZ3 site as well as forums. Nothing about how to do it. Is this something I really want to attempt, or should I just pay a stereo installer to do it?

I can't seem to get a screwdriver in well enough to pry back the tabs holding the sled in place.

Get some picture hanging wire and see if you can loop it behind the tab, then pull. This has worked for me in the past.

Crutchfield may have a document on your model car to disassemble the dash. They have a pretty extensive database.