Dear V-8 Buick Cool-cat wannabees . . . . As described elsewhere on this board, the Vintage Air evaporator unit has made it into my trusty 1965 Buick Special wagon. I went over to Orinda Motors this afternoon with a measuring tape. As feared, there is no way the original glove box liner will fit. It appears to me at there is at most 5" of clearance between the glove compartment door and the evaporator unit. The existing glove box liner is a little bit short of 8". Of course Vintage Air thoughtfully supplies cheap and crummy looking plastic glove box liner which is a really tiny 3" in depth. However, since it is for a GTO, not my trusty wagon - it is useless. I have both the 48 year old original liner and a reproduction I bought to replace it. Both have the same construction: heavy cardboard with a fabric lining secured by heavy staples. I was thinking about carefully dismantling the original, trying to find locations where I could cut the cardboard and then reassemble to make a test fit. If all went well, I would then modify the reproduction. However, before I start on this long tortured path, anybody else face this problem? Anybody got a "more better" way for me to shave off 3-4" out of a Buick glove box liner? Thanks as always for the clever answers to even the most exotic questions!! :Smarty: Cheers, Edouard :beer
Just an idea, I don't know what the original looks like and I have no experience with this but if you need 3-4" of clearance, I'd start by cutting the interfering bit out of the old one just enough to make it fit snugly a bit at a time. Then, when you get it trimmed to fit, I'd make a template to cover the hole with cardboard and make a patch out of some suitably dense/thick stock and pop rivet it to the remaining box. If it works, then you can cut up the repro and maybe the piece you remove can be used to make the patch.
Photos of the old liner. (Re: Glove box liner for a Vintage Air A/C) Dear Greg and V-8 Buick tinkerers, I went ahead and took some photos of the old glove box liner for reference. Here is one view of the interior: Here is the other side: For reference here is a photo of the OPGI reproduction box: The only thing I've spotted that is missing is that little trim of fabric around the front of the shelf. I also have 5 pictures of the exterior to show how the cardboard is put together. Here is the bottom of the original box: Here is the driver's side of the liner: Here is the top of the liner: Here is the passenger side of the box: Finally here is the back showing what would be against the Vintage air parts: That's definitely a thought. I need to take another look at how the liner is installed. I think it needs some clearance because it must be installed from the back. Also, I goofed and didn't check into the angle at the point of contact. There might be more space than I measures because the box have a different geometry. I would also need to relocate the shelf but that should be easy to do. Indeed either I could cut carefully to be able to reuse the part of the reproduction liner, or perhaps I could salvage a piece from the original that is clean enough to be used. Alas, as you can see the old box is a bit weary after 48 years! The other idea I was toying with was to take out the staples from the old liner so that I could lay out flat. I could then scan the various pieces with a flat-bed scanner and make myself a complete template of the box. It would be more work but then I could be much more creative in my modifications and make as many prototypes as I wanted. I could also switch materials and make the actual exterior of the box say in steel or aluminum and then lay the pieces of the OPGI liner purely to restore the appearance. Oh well, I'll need to give this some more thought. I'll also need to check the car again to see if I can clarify how much space I have for this box. Thanks for the suggestion! :TU: Cheers, Edouard :beer
I have a friend who is a tin knocker by trade ( HVAC etc.) We will be pulling the staples from my original liner that came in my Skylark and using the flattened out liner as a template to bend the box out of aluminum. Apparently we were not the first to have this idea. The plan was to mount the audio equipment in the glovebox and use a remote to access the tunes. Figured the original liner was not up to the task. I have rethought the plan and will be mounting the tunes in the trunk and using a remote, but would still like to bend a liner out of aluminum. Just can`t see putting the old liner back in. It`s ugly /cheap/ looking. Jim/Rott:TU:
Cardboard plenty tough, but metal or fiberglass better! (Re: Glove box liner) Dear Jim and V-8 Buick vehicle "enhancers," Ya' know, I didn't think much of these boxes when I learned that they were made of cardboard, but if you look at the pictures, my trusty wagon's glove box liner has held up really well for 48 years. I know more than a few Hollywood starlets who cannot claim to have aged that well!! :Brow: Nonetheless, putting another cardboard box into this location doesn't give me warm fuzzies. I would like to preserve something of the original look of the glove compartment. I've been putting things into that glove compartment for 30 years, it is another one of those odd sites of nostalgia. However, wrapping that cardboard in aluminum or steel is fair game as far as I'm concerned and I don't think it would take a lot of metal to really make the whole assembly much more robust. Perhaps an easier way to do it is to simply fiberglass the exterior of the box. That would give it much more rigidity and protection from moisture. At the same time it would be very little additional thickness. I've been keeping my iPod in the glove compartment on the top shelf. However, I've got a template to make my own "box" to replace the ash tray. My hope is to move the iPod out of the glove compartment and store it closer to me. I do keep the registration, insurance, and other paperwork in the glove compartment. Do hope I can keep it big enough for that. Alas . . . given the explosion in the population of lawyers, may be hard to keep enough room for all that paperwork!! :rant: Cheers, Edouard :beer
Re: Cardboard plenty tough, but metal or fiberglass better! (Re: Glove box liner) It is heavy stuff and it has lasted this long. Maybe they don't make cardboard like they used to?
Re: Cardboard plenty tough, but metal or fiberglass better! (Re: Glove box liner) Point taken and agreed. We don`t make anything like we used to, look at Detroit. 60+ yrs ago 18 yr olds and Detroit saved the world. Now Detroit is bankrupt and the 18 yrs can`t even pull their pants up long enough to develop a decent work ethic. My forty three yr old cardboard liner is in better shape than this country!:shock: Jim/Rott
Sad but true . . . . . (Re: Glove box liner) Dear Jim/Rott and fellow souls who lament the passing of the good old days, . . . . Sure is heartbreaking to think that we really are exactly that situation. Edouard
FYI: Posterboard prototype (Re: Glove box liner for a Vintage Air A/C) Dear V-8 Buick cool-cat wannabees, I thought I should post a quick update on this project that is one of the irons I have in the fire. I have come up with a prototype design for a glove box liner that would fit in a 1964-65 Buick Special/Skylark with a Vintage Air evaporator unit installed. I've had to make several prototypes which I made in Posterboard. As you will see in the photos, the design is done using the illustration program Canvas. Here is are two comparison photos between the old factory box and the new prototype. Here is the view from the opening: Here is a view from the top to show how much smaller the new box has to be to fit: Here is the prototype fitted into the car - a straight on view: Passenger side view: Finally the driver's side view. As you can see I tried to duplicate the style of the old box right down to the shelf. After all these years I've gotten used to that shelf! One last picture showing the clearance to the Vintage Air evaporator unit: If you look carefully, there are some electrical connection jacks just beyond the box on the evaporator unit. There should be enough clearance so that the cables can be plugged in. I'm hoping to fabricate the box out of 26 gauge galvanized steel, using pop-rivets and epoxy to close off the box. I wasn't able to locate felt fabric that is a color match, but I did find some multi-colored grey that looks business-like and should hide any stains. If I can pull this off I promise to post a full report on . . . . . . . . . you guessed it, V-8 Buick!! :3gears: Cheers, Edouard :beer
Nothing like some creative ingenuity to solve a problem. It really appears you did not lose much storage capacity..:TU:
