I picked up this console the other day.


https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...2-console.html


As there was no immediate interest here I'm going to restore it and paint it black. The door was incorrectly (I assume) installed with a couple bolts through each end. Inside there's a plastic backer plate that looks as though it was glued to the console but when I removed two bolts it's just acting as a spacer and is no longer attached. I assume that there were three studs which protruded through this backer plastic and the hinge was attached to these three studs with nuts. I assume this plastic backer must be re-glued to the console.


Can anyone confirm this?


I'd also like to know how the glove box liner was installed. There are four rivets??? that appear to be imbedded into the plastic that also hold the glove box trim in place (two are circles in red below). Something appears to be proken off here. How do these come out? I assume this is where the glove box liner is attached but when I look at the Fusick picture of the plastic console box they sell it doesn't look like it attaches here.





Thanks,

 

Hey Mike, IIRC Patton had a nice pictorial write up this last year. I cannot search on my iPhone for crud.
Brett

 

I found it Brett. Thank you. I think it will give me most of what I need to restore this thing.


For others that may be seaching:


https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...le-advice.html

 

I think this deserves a sticky note!
Oh Mr Moderator, could you please and thank you!
Brett

 

I just should have done a better job searching

 

The inserts fit snugly into the well and are held down with 4 screws. Two in the front, two in the bottom along the centerline overlap (goes through both sections), and two on the top rear corners of the insert. The light plunger switch goes through the overlapping holes at the rear center.

 

I know the bottom panel is available. If you look at the pic of the console above it looks like there are side panels that attach with rivets. The side panels appear to be broken off just below the plastic rivets. In the repair thread that 70post's pics are in the side panels are visible. The inside of my console doesn't have this liner on the sides.

 

There are NO separate "side panels".....the only separate panels are the console inserts that are shown in Fun71's posting/pic above. The sides of the glovebox compartment are just the inside of the console itself.

There is a separate outer metal piece....I'm referring to the outside of the upper area of the console glovebox. This is a formed metal piece and it's covered in a very thin textured vinyl. It's the piece that the screw/bolt heads go through in your original pic showing the mods/repair someone made for the hinge.

There is also the console glovebox bright trim piece that slips into place and finishes off/hides the edges of the upper console/glovebox area. This is the bright anodized aluminum piece (has a black painted channel running along its length). This is held in place with the black plastic pushpin rivets that you may have been referring to (that's their sole function....to hold the bright alum trim in place and the trim, in turn, retains/covers the edges of the thin-vinyl-covered outer metal surround piece.

The black plastic pushpin/rivets are pretty much a one-use item. You ruin them when removing them. Drill them out and thread a screw into them and pull, use needle nose pliers, etc.

 

Patton,


I looked more closely at the interior of the console and you are correct, the side liner IS the inside of the console. From your pic's above I assume you cleaned the back of the plastic hinge backer (the piece that snapped off), drilled four pilot holes through the plastic backer and into the plastic liner at the locations shown circled in red (your pic below), countersunk the holes so the hinge doesn't ride on them, applied ABS glue, and screwed the backer piece in place. What's used for the three hinge bolts? I assume you place three appropriate length bolts through the back of the backer plastic before gluing/screwing it in place and then install nuts to mount the hinge, correct? Is that how the factory hinge is mounted? Did they use sheet metal screws into the backer plastic?


I still have to figure out how I'm going to fill the holes that were drilled through the outside of the console. I think I'm going to end up using JB weld. I'm afraid to MIG them shut because I think I'll melt the liner.






Here is my hinge backer piece:

Here is it resting in place:

 

Mike - Any way you can shrink your pics down slightly?? MUCH easier to see and read EVERYTHING at once (without having to move my screen across) when they are sized to fit inside a regular posting).

In the thread that was linked to (showing my pics/repair ideas) I did not use any screws through the broken off backer to attach the hinge to the console. The re-attached backer piece/strip is just used to hide the repair and lower half of the hinge.

>The factory attaches the hinge to the backer strip via 3 sheet metal type screws

>In my posting I was attaching the hinge to the outer PLASTIC wall of the console body
via drilled holes and sheet metal screws (no nuts). The outer metal surround should be
removed before doing this as you want to make sure the screw points don't poke into the
metal surround.

>In one of your pics above you show the red circles.....again, that represents the general
positioning of the 4 screws BUT I didn't drill through the re-attached plastic backer strip
to install these screws. I just attached the hinge, as already described, to the outer
plastic console body and the last step in the repair was re-attaching the strip
("cosmetic" reattachment without the need to build up a bunch of glue, etc for strength).

>So...I retained the backer strip but re-attached it just to hide the new screw heads and
have the repair still appear reasonably "stock". You can paint the screw heads black to
further hide them.

>NOTE: This method moves the hinge and door OUTBOARD slightly so some re-fitting
and repositioning of the door may be necessary (elongate hinge to door holes to allow
movement of the door back inboard).

>I think I had to clearance the inside of the the plastic backer strip a bit with a Dremel
tool, etc so it wouldn't hit on the 4 screw heads (they protruded out a bit and prevented
the plastic backer strip from sitting in its original position).

THIS ISN'T THE ONLY WAY TO DO THIS REPAIR...

1) others have suggested, as I think you may be thinking, using small machine bolts with
nuts on the outside (hidden, of course, by the upper metal surround).

2)I've suggested using the original attachment method of three screws running through
the RE-ATTACHED plastic backer strip. But.....you would want to have the plastic
backer strip SOLIDLY attached to make this method work. To me, just crazy glue or
epoxy probably isn't enough to hold the plastic backer strip good enough to resist
the hinge spring pressure over time. If you got things SUPER clean and crazy glued
the strip back in place along the contact surfaces AND then built up a lot of epoxy, etc
along all the edges it might be enough to hold well...who knows???

Upper metal surround piece:

>The thin vinyl covering of the metal surround piece is already damaged on yours since it's had holes drilled through it and the metal is likely pulled inwards from the repair fasteners being tightened (the metal is thin and flat which means it doesn't resist bending or distorting very well...it was just meant to be a cosmetic piece anyway so nothing thick
used there by the factory)

>The texture grain on the upper metal surround piece is IN THE THIN VINYL COVERING, not stamped into the metal itself

>As such, any repair you do there will be obvious unless you find a way to hide the filler by re-texturing it or re-covering the upper metal surround with some sort of material (regular vinyl is too thick IMO and you'll have problems with wrinkling of the vinyl). You might try to find a better replacement upper metal piece with no holes in it.

Hard to describe alot of this in words with so may parts, etc....it's probably as clear as mud!!

 

Try that


BTW they fit on my 22" monitor fine

 

Thanks Patton,


I'll figure something out to make it work. Overall the console is in very good shape so it's definitely worth restoring.


One last question:


Does the factory hinge go in front of the plastic backer piece or behind it?

 

From what I remember of the only car I had without a broken console lid, behind. The screws go through the plastic and thread into the metal hinge plate.

 

The factory hinge goes BEHIND the backer piece....it gets slid down into the channel that is created when the backer is in place.

Thanks for the "shrinkage"!

 

Thank you both. Now I understand your pic with the four arrows. You drill four new holes in the hinge, mount the hinge with the four shallow screws to the console "lining", and then glue the plastic piece over it and place three "faux" screws back through the plastic.