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Quest for cup holders, or Another Console Build

6K views 32 replies 11 participants last post by  borzoi 
#1 ·
The final straw occurred last weekend. Late to my neighbor's niece's wedding and a bit tired, we pulled into the Starbucks drive-through. Large coffee for me, large Chai Latte for my wife. Without thinking, I put them in the Astro cup holders. Like I said, we were late, so I made a quick left back into traffic, cutting off some dude in a Lincoln Navigator who laid heavy on the horn, and squeezed in between a monster pickup with a TEXIT bumper sticker and a SMART car. Meanwhile my wife began screaming and yelling.

Yes, hot coffee and Latte all over her lap. We didn't make the wedding.

To remove temptation to ever again use those useless detents that pass for cup holders, I got out my trusty Dremel and fixed that problem, removing the "glove box", which is too small to hold a decent pair of gloves anyway, in the process.

IMG_5346_Fotor.jpg

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Looks good, right?

After staring at the backside of the doghouse for a day or two, I covered the hole with a piece of plywood,

IMG_5352_Fotor.jpg


and decided to do a floor console build, which I'll document here. Yes, lots of pictures.

And, no I don't use CAD, but rather WAD, Wood Aided Design, which has nothing to do with the pictures on the calendar in my brother's shop. And since I use the time tested and time saving (?) method of MOBC, Measure Once Before you Cut, this might prove a bit embarrassing. Or perhaps I'll just not show the resulting scrap pile, nor tell you of the number of trips to the lumber yard for more plywood. Anyway, let the build begin.
 
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#3 ·
What timing!

yesterday afternoon i wrote up a post asking for links to rebuilding the 'glovebox' part of the doghouse. For some reason it didn't post to the forum.

And here we are!

When i put in new front swivel buckets i sliced off the undercarpet AC vent tubes. The 'tween seat portion was left under the carpet to hold it's shape. Now that I'm going to fab a new glovebox I removed the vertical plastic duct that lays on the doghouse. I'm going to cover the ends of the round tubing under the dash.

There is lots of cubic space now to make a better glovebox.

no CAD for me either...i'll be using cardboard and masking tape! pics to follow as I get to the project.
 
#4 ·
CAD - Cardboard Aided Design :). I just get out the tape measure, the saw, and the drill, and get to work! Oh, but I do sketch a few pictures.

I too removed the vertical portion of the AC/Heater duct that sits in front of doghouse since it serves no purpose but to waste airflow (more on that later), but cut and reconfigured the vent piping that sits on top of the doghouse. That way I still have air on the driver's feet. But I also removed this:

IMG_5375_Fotor.jpg


along with the distribution ducts behind and under the front seats. The floor is now dead flat and, I hope, will better accommodate whatever I'm going to build.

BTW, after I cut off the nose of the center console, I left the rest since it does provide an interface into the curved sidewalls of the doghouse surround. I intend to interface to the plywood blank I placed over the hole where the front of the console had been, with some clever arrangement (TBD) tucking up under the radio and something to cover up the gap you can see on the top left. It seems that the molded plastic is artfully curved, making things a little more difficult.

But now back to the drawing board - er - the sketch pad.
 
#5 ·
Yay. Build a new center console. But first, what is the canvas? A show van, a go van, or just whatever?

Ours is basically a dog kennel on wheels set up for off pavement driving, but not for rock crawling or other heroics. We are lifted 2-3 inches, just enough to accept 32" tires with some fender trimming, and have skid plates to protect the oil pan. I would have liked bigger tires, but 32" was the largest full size spare I could jam under the van without mods, and I certainly have no interest in a spare on the roof. I stripped off the plastic front bumper to help with approach angle, and stripped off all the plastic side cladding while I was at it.

IMG_5400_Fotor.jpg


I then stripped out the 2nd and 3rd rows of seating, the rear seat belts, and anything else we didn't need or the dogs might chew up. I next built a platform for the dogs out of marine grade 3/4" Baltic birch with storage under. I installed jack nuts as needed to attach the (mostly) aluminum frame used to hold the reconfigured X-pens so we can open the doors without the dogs jumping out, and I also installed jacknuts and 1/4-20 bolts on the body of the van to support a large nightime enclosure for the dogs. You can see in the picture below that I've mounted RV table track to the platform and pins to the inside of the dutch doors to support a "back porch" which adds another 30" to the floor of the van for dog sleeping space.

I also mounted a Curt receiver hitch with the receiver "upside down", so it passes through, rather than below, the rear bumper, and installed the trailer electrical connector through the bumper, both of which help with departure angles.

IMG_5401_Fotor.jpg


Below the sliding door, I added a folding step which the dogs use to help get in and out (the top of their bed is just shy of 4 feet off the ground) as well as keep items stored under that portion of the platform from sliding out into the door.

IMG_5414_Fotor.jpg


At max rearward travel, the passenger seat is hard up agains the dog platform.

Bottom line is that we value practicality and functionality over appearance, and although I want the console to look good enough, it certainly will not be a work of art.

So what do we want in a center console? CUP HOLDERS!! Anything else? Yes. As it stands, there is no place to toss that extra jacket, a computer, or anything else we would rather not have in the under-platform storage. So how much room do we need? A lot. Enough to store windbreakers/jackets, hats/caps, gloves, binoculars, leashes and collars, dog treats, Garmin Oregon, phones, walkie-talkies, Macbook Air (for topo maps from onXhunt which show public-private land ownership, game management units, roads on forest service and BLM lands), kleenex, wipes, a large Stanley thermos, and whatever else strikes our fancy. Oh, and also provides a table top for the computer since that is our primary source of map info.

How much room have we got? Essentially from the floor to the tops of the arm rests, from the wooden blank I placed over the hole left when I sawed off the factory cup holders and glove box to the dog platform, and from passenger to driver seat belts with cutouts to reach the reclining levers (even though the seats can't recline much.)

IMG_5399_Fotor.jpg


You can also see that the top of the platform overhangs the body of the platform, which provides a bit of third hand type storage. Bottom line is a volume of roughly 30 X 13 X 18 inches high.
IMG_5403_Fotor.jpg


What we are planning is basically four boxes, two on the lower level and two on the upper, with some not terribly inconvenient provision to reach the lower boxes.

Anticipating that I will actually get off my butt and build something, I assembled my collection of precision wood working tools in my portable workshop.

IMG_5357_Fotor.jpg
,

the most important piece of which is the homemade guide, pictured below, that allows me to make straight cuts with my skill-saw. Not quite a table or radial arm saw, but good enough.

IMG_5356_Fotor.jpg


Wow. writing this up was hard work. Probably should have just built the boxes instead. Oh well. Miller time.
 
#7 ·
Checked it out and it looks good. But I'm at that stage of life (70 y.o.) where my goal is to get rid of stuff, even useful stuff. Gave away my table saw and drill press a few years ago. And I figure that if those Amish dudes can do the work they do with only a wooden mallet, a draw knife, and a few chisels, I can survive with what I've got. Hmmmm. Maybe those 90 degree pony clamps and a homemade fixture to guide the drill bit? Hmmm. Anyway, I'm turning into a bit of an anti-stuff curmudgeon, but thanks none the less.

Doug
 
#8 ·
Wow! that is quite the "What-works-for-me" van!

Looking at those shallow cups reminded me that even the full size Chevy vans I ran around with in the 80s had the same issue. Shame on GM not addressing it on these Gen2s.

If you look at that console from the back of the unit - there is plenty of space for them to have made them deeper. Guess their market research didn't reflect that.

Looking forward to seeing what ya build!!
 
#9 ·
waiting also... I hate the stock cup holes... I thought I was going nutz, my rear wiper would randomly start swinging while driving... I took a few days to realize my passenger was hitting the instant wipe button on the wiper switch with his monster energy drink, when drinking it.....
 
#10 ·
PaulyFL said:
Wow! that is quite the "What-works-for-me" van!
Haha. But tis true. We don't use the van as a daily driver, and try to keep it ready to roll at a moment's notice. My brother calls it our GOOD rig - Get Out Of Dodge, while my wife simply calls it our Leave Now rig.

Anyway, last night I sketched up the bottom two boxes, dimensioned them, and made a cut list. Today I get busy. Check back tonight. If I done good, pictures. If not, ... well I won't go there.
 
#12 ·
The two lower boxes, as promised. Both are 13" high, and 13" wide. The front box is 13" on the longer of the two sides, and rear box is 16" long. My computer fits nicely in the rear box (one of the reasons I picked the dimensions.) I did get the cutouts in the right places (yay) and they do allow easy reach of the reclining lever.

IMG_5460_Fotor.jpg
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Yah, yah. The front box is NOT rectangular. It was, but it didn't fit due to the angle of the blank covering the doghouse hole. Measure Once Before You Cut nips me. Oh well. Rather than shorten the entire box, I just shortened the side that was interfering. Why not? I did a rough sand and threw on a thin first coat of Spar Urethane both to protect them and to protect me from splinters while I continue to work with them. There are four holes in each box where they bolt together, forming one solid unit in the van. Actually, there are five in one of the boxes, but don't ask. Wood filler later, followed by belt sanding to fit and smooth edges, followed by final sand, followed by two more coats of Urethane. Like I said. Later.

Tomorrow, the two top boxes.
 
#13 ·
#14 ·
Seeing that glove box chopped off reminded me of one of the times that we moved. My wife had a desk that had been put together inside the room that we used as her office. When moving day came around, the movers could not get that desk through the doorway no matter how they tried. A few minutes later, I had a cordless DeWalt recip saw in my hand and modified the desk so that it would go through the door. The movers were wide-eyed and for the most part stayed away from me the rest of the day.

I'm picturing Borzoi out there with a recip saw in a similar fashion re-working his cup holders. :confused: :eek:
 
#15 ·
borzoi said:
... Bottom line is a volume of roughly 30 X 13 X 18 inches high ...
Will you still be able to get into the engine cover / "Doghouse" easily?
Wood (sic) lighter plywood have given you more room and maybe made it lighter / easier to whatever?

borzoi said:
"glove box", which is too small to hold a decent pair of gloves anyway
I can fit 6 pair of gloves in The Van's Glovebox - when you mentioned , I HAD to check. They were the Std. Canvas Work Gloves.
Then again, our Glovebox cost me a battery.

I did not realize Gen IIs were so inconvenient. I only rented one for a few weeks a couple of times back in 05.
I do know they have smaller footwells and bumpier ( new word? ) floors than the Older Codger Vans - haha.

Mike
 
#16 ·
Mike: Good questions

1. Doghouse access: Remove the front top and bottom boxes, leaving the rear ones in place. The top box will be held in with rotary draw latches for quick access to the lower front box. The lower front box will be bolted to the lower rear, or, perhaps, held with draw latches. The lower rear will be bolted to the dog platform. Access to the various bolts/latches will be easy. At least that's the plan.

2. Weight: The plywood is 1/2" Baltic birch ( 9-ply) and both sturdy and quite light. I can easily sit in the driver's seat and reach over to lift the front top box up to set it on the top rear box.

3. Glovebox: That was an exaggeration on my part, but I do find access to the glovebox pretty lousy. It is deep vertically, and cr@p settles to the bottom, leaving me, or my wife, to paw through stuff to find a pen, or whatever else is rather small.

Doug
 
#17 ·
Today's results. Lots more work required, tinking around, scribing. trimming, fitting, securing, etc, but here is the idea for the top two boxes and the interface to the old console.
IMG_5468_Fotor.jpg

These are not secured, just set in place, with issues of fitting and scribing still to be dealt with. Think of this as my cardboard model, but made from wood. The main issue with cardboard is that the thickness of the wood _really_ affects details with all the angle cuts. The console interface, which will eventually contain several gauges and USB chargers, doesn't have a single right angle, anywhere!

Here is a view of the console interface from the driver's perspective.
IMG_5467_Fotor.jpg

What a PITA!
And here is a typical cut. Wood is at an angle, saw is at an angle. If only the console were square rather than being a curvy, molded piece of plastic.
IMG_5465_Fotor.jpg

It will probably be a few days before I have more pictures. Need to get back to our teardrop trailer where I am installing a solar system and reworking the galley. But I will be back.

Doug
 
#19 ·
Thanks, Bruce. I'm intending that the console interface become part of the doghouse cover, "permanently" attached, and that removing the cover is exactly as before. Any bolts will be 1/4-20, which I do have in my travel tool kit, or, preferably, with butterfly draw latches. I'll have to see what works.

Doug
 
#20 ·
Finished my cabinetry/fridge install in our Teardrop trailer. Time to get back to the Astro.

New doghouse cover. Wood is "permanently" attached to factory plastic which remained after my exercise with the Dremel. No, I didn't use a sawsall, but I did think about it.

Top panel still needs things, but it finally, fits.

IMG_5515_Fotor.jpg

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Now, you might ask, wasn't that a PITA? All those angles? The curves?

Well, I don't want to talk about it. Time to move on and fit the rest of the boxes. Cup holders are still a little ways off!
 
#22 ·
HotWire said:
Are you looking to get rid of the stock pieces? I am looking for this piece.
So sorry, but that went in the trash several days ago. But good luck finding a replacement.

Doug
 
#23 ·
borzoi said:
HotWire said:
Are you looking to get rid of the stock pieces? I am looking for this piece.
So sorry, but that went in the trash several days ago. But good luck finding a replacement.

Doug
Doug...doug...doug!

i can't believe you threw something out less than 3 weeks after you amputated it from your van!

Kidding...I'm a scrounge with cubic space of storage still.

Borzoi...i have mine if you're interested...drop me a note.

Cladding too...come to Minneapolis and collect it for free.
 
#24 ·
HotWire said:
Are you looking to get rid of the stock pieces? I am looking for this piece.
Dime a dozen at the local JY here in SoCal, but without the better cup holding inserts... shall I grab / ship one for you? PM me.
 
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