Help Please! Auto gearstick gone loose

[Classic_car]

Just put the car back in to 'park' and something pinged, sounded like a spring breaking. Now the shifter is loose in the gate, I assume it just needs a new spring. Problem is I cannot see how to remove the plastic gate that surround the stick to access the broken spring, can anyone please advise?

The car is a 1988 300se s-Class (W126)

I've got the wood trim off no problem, but cannot see how to remove the gate with P,D,N,1,2,3 on to get to the spring.

 

[Classic_car]

The bit I cannot understand how to remove is the black bit, shown in picture. After the wood is removed, there are two plastic tabs at the top corners of the black trim, I removed those, but the trim shown in pic will not come out

 

[Classic_car]

UPDATE:

Problem fixed - it was a spring that had broken, causing the stick to go loose. The spring is the type you get on a clothes peg or crocodile clip. I managed to find a croc clip with the correct size spring and the shifter is restored

 

[ianrandom]

Well done. Is that your car in the pic? If so does it have something unusual in place of the ashtray, plus more switches than normal?

 

[Classic_car]

Hi Ian, no it's not. The switches are seat heaters, that have been retro fitted I think.