Tech article by eds66bronco

After adding my front cage, I realized the glove box was going to need to be modified in order to be of any use. After searching all over the net and looking at all the mods that people have done, I was surprised at how complicated people had made this project. Cutting, welding, messing with hinges and latches… there had to be something that was quick, and could be swapped back to stock if I ever wanted to.

I poked around the shop and found a length of rod that was about 1/8″ thick and cut it to the length shown in red in the picture above. I then marked the location where I wanted the door to hinge and marked it on the dash and the door. I removed the hinges and door and transfered the lines to the inside of the door and the flange of the opening. Center punched the spots to drill and made the holes. The door has a nice flat spot on the top and bottom to drill and the front and back panels have just enough room to fit the rod inside.

Once the holes were drilled and the rod was placed inside the door, I inserted the rod into the upper hole in the opening flange. By pushing the rod up flush with the bottom of the door, I inserted a piece of cut-off brake tubing (pictures above) as a spacer to keep the door at the proper height. Now I was able to line up the bottom hole and with a pair of needle nose pliers, I pushed the rod down until it bottomed out where the lower dash bends.

I was surprised at how well it worked with the stock latch. It closes and opens very well and the only thing it still needs is a paint job and new rubber bumper to help push it open as the stock one is 39 years old and no longer resembles rubber.

If you are wondering about the writing on the box door, I had to leave it. It’s one of the few PO mods (along with the 50 mph Max Speed painted on the dash – rather than fix the track bar bushings) that were too funny to change. (I left the dash but fixed the bushings) He was from New Mexico and had several nice stereo’s stolen one summer. He finally got a pos cheap-o stereo for 20 bucks and wrote the following message on the box door: “Don’t steal this stereo! It’s a piece of $#!t I’ll buy you a brand new one! Seriously ! Call ….. ” Well, that was the last stereo he ever installed and he never did get a phone call so I had to leave it too! Good luck and enjoy the use of your glove box once again!

Tech article by eds66bronco

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 10th, 2009 at 12:15 pm and is filed under - Dash & Guages, Interior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.