Glove Box Repair

[Chris64]

So I'm starting to address my interior issues. As seems to be the case, no project happens without creating a secondary project. I learned that the hinge of Square bodies are trash and not meant to last 50 years.

Replacing is easy enough but I'm on a budget so let's repair it!

Searching around it seemed like the popular answer was piano hinge. Well that was putting me half way to buying a new liner. Wait! I have a 3d printer! Now, I've never tried to print a part to go inside a car, but it melts at about 200 degrees and if it's bolted in several places to a metal object, it should be ok. So here's what I came up with. It lined up with the glove box much better than a piano hinge. Below is the original on the right, and the new version on the left. I had a piece of 1/10" brass rod that slid right in. It's meant to have an offset for better alignment.

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Here are the parts all printed. It might have worked out extra cool because the printer has a texture on the bed that looks very automotive-like. My original design had the holes already in it for mounting but then I realized there's no order to the factory holes. They range in position by about 3/8".

Note: this is printed solid. No hex infill or anything. I figured that would be the least likely to warp in the heat.

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And here it is fully assembled. I was so excited that I was prepared to start taking orders! Not really, but you know what I mean.

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To be continued...

 

[Chris64]

Continued...

Well the alignment wasn't great. There wasn't room to push it quite flush and it had a creaking noise when you opened it that I didn't like. I'm sure it would've been noisy going down the road.

SO, while this project haunted me I was replacing a BBQ cover and it came to me...fabric.

The old cover was very UV resistant. It also didn't have any stretchiness to it. What if I just contact cemented this cloth over the original hinge and repaired it that way. It had some spots on it that weren't in bad shape.

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I taped the fabric down tight and put the bottom piece on first. Then I pressed it on to the cemented liner.

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It cutout easy after gluing and it has a metal cover that will cover the bottom part. If I knew it was going to work so well I probably would've looked for a cleaner piece of fabric, but you won't see any of it.

The alignment is perfect. It shuts way better than before since I cleaned out the latch removing it multiple times.

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I'll keep this thread posted if it fails but as of now I'm super excited with this fix.

I wonder what that vacuum line goes to...

 

[SquareRoot]

I like the color of your interior. Is that like an avocado green? Oh and good job with thinking outside the box. I've been contemplating buying a printer just for experimenting.

 

[Chris64]

Here's it from an angle nobody should ever be at. Just so you can see the final product. After it's had time to dry I'll probably put something on the fabric to darken it but you really can't see it. Also, it was missing a screw already. Of course. My list never gets smaller.

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[Chris64]

I like the color of your interior. Is that like an avocado green? Oh and good job with thinking outside the box. I've been contemplating buying a printer just for experimenting.

It's (517) Lime Metallic. I've decided it's ugly and I like it.

I was able to safely remove the glovebox sticker with the code. I'm trying to decide if I should maybe attach it to a decal sheet so it can be more easily removed if I do have to replace the glovebox.