Outer Limits 4x4 Board

All,

Bored as usual. What to do today...

Quick write-up on making second glove box in GU's without passenger side front airbags.

Total time: Few hours. Could probably do it in one hour if your on a mission.
Total cost: $0.00. Nix, nada, none, nothing.
Angle grinder and drill that were used were plugged into inverter in ute, and so not even any house-hold electricity was consumed.


Step 1. Undo front plastic plate.
Open up the existing glovebox, and put your hand up into the hole towards the inner side of the front plastic plate.
If your hand can not fit, enlarge the hole with a stanley knife or small hacksaw.
Feel for six small screws which are in the corners and the middle of the front face plate. Using a stubby philips head, undo the six screws, and the front plastic plate will come out. Dont do what I did, and attempt to pull the front plate out without undo-ing these screws... hence the small marks I now have everywhere.




Step 2. Cut back of dash out.
I started off using a butane soldering iron with a hot knife blade in it, attempting to melt through and cut the centre out.
I gave up after taking too long, then tried an old clunker of a soldering iron, then the blow torch of the butane iron.
Then just went and grabbed the angle grinder with one of those 0.7mm thin cut off blades.








After some cleaning up, it started to look a bit neater.



Step 3. Inner box bit
Grabbed some thin aluminium plate which used to be an old 386sx16 (remember those?) computer cover.
Making it a very tight fit, it is self supporting and I don't think it will require any screws to hold it in place.

Then using two of the original six screws that held the front plate on, drilled two small holes, and these two screws
are now the hinges for the front cover. No measuring was done, just made a half hearted guess by eye'ing it, drilled, screwed, and it kinda worked.

Then added a small bit of selt belt to help pull the front plate out easier.

hmm well i must admit yours is larger than mine but i must say mines alot neater!
wheres the carpet trim and nice polished brass piano hinge..
i'l try and up load some pics of mine tomorrow, to late at the moment!

there's a good link here

http://www.consoles.com.au/Nissan_GU_glovebox.htm

cheers

sweet been thinking of doing this or putting gauges in that area but didnt no how to go about it.. its on the to do list now tho..
thanks for the tips

That is a awsume amount of roughness, lol, why didnt you just kick it in



(i cant talk, ive started but not competed)

Gooday, i recon he has done a fantastic job, you could always improve on somebody elses idea, but to show us how with pics is great and a lot cheaper than nthe $295 installed price .
Thanks i might give it a go Gazza

I did mine a while ago.. a little neater than that, but certainly no work of art.

One tip, don't use a hot glue gun to make a box outa ply.. i did and it was all fine for ages, then in the week of 45c we had a while ago, the glue softened and the box fell to bits.. I still have to get around to fixing it.

what did you use for a hinge?

and wont stored shit fall into the dash as your driving/4x4ing?

built2redline wrote:what did you use for a hinge?

and wont stored shit fall into the dash as your driving/4x4ing?

no hinge just two screws that go into each side and act as pivots

use a small piano hinge from bunning's!
$10

Yes it is rough, And I gave up after it hit what seemed like 40 yesterday in the sun. It also cost zero dollars and I aint got any fancy carpet laying around. I aint spending any more money on my old POC.

The intention was just to show how to do it. I couldn't find much about it before I started... Arr well, just delete it.

you must have dainty little lady hands or I have fat man hands or something because I cannot for the life of me get my hand up in there to undo the screws.

simcoe wrote:use a small piano hinge from bunning's!
$10

why if two screws work just as well.

I'm hoping to do this next weekend and instead of using a box for the innards I am going to use one of those enviro shopping bags attached with a cover plate. That way it will fit a lot more stuff in all the nooks and crannys and will be easy to replace if it rips etc

Good on ya for having the balls to attack a GU dash with an angle grinder.
Some of us would use a bit more finese doing it but the end result is the same. Great place to store stuff.
Wish mine didn't have airbags but I did not have a choice.
Spend $30 at Bunnings and get some ally to fold up into a box. Job done.