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So today on Repairs101 Iíve got my 2000 Buick Century under the carport and itís got a
broken glove box from my stuffing it full of junk when I was out travelling in it recently.
So itís the second time, actually, that Iíve done this repair ñ it had a broken glove
box when I bought the car. I know exactly what to do, weíre going to get some J-B Weld
steel reinforced quick setting epoxy and weíre going to slap it back together and Iíll show
you how itís done. Alright this oneís my fault. I recently was
travelling in my car and I overloaded my glove box here ñ I broke it off at the hinge. So
Iíve done this very same repair on this car before. Itís just a matter of working it
out. Thereís a little bumper on each side of the end of it that you just sort of need
to wiggle out. Letís try it that way ñ oh yeah, thatís the way. OK so weíll just pull
that out. OK so Iím going to disconnect this light here because Iím going to be leaving
the car without the glove box in it until I do the repair. Just pull on that little
tab there then pull back on the wire. OK Iíve got to get this hinge off. I mentioned before
in a previous video that I like to keep my sockets on a rail and hereís why: because
I donít know what size this is but I do know that itíll be on my rail.
OK so hereís the broken part you can see the old epoxy across the tip of it, you can
see the plastic nubs. All you need to do is get the glove box out like you just saw me
do, disconnect the wire on the light and just pull the carpeting back a little bit.
So hereís an old mechanicís trick you might not know: if you canít see it very easily
ñ which I canít in this case because of the carpeting ñ push your finger up against
it until it makes an impression on your finger and then you can see exactly what kind of
fastener it is that youíre dealing with by this little impression that it leaves on your
finger. And then Iím going to take my rail and Iím going to compare and say ìoh, itís
somewhere around this size right here, maybe this one.î Letís give that a try. [ Ratcheting.]
Letís just say for instance this mud-flapís hereís got a screw on it that I canít see.
So Iíll push my finger up against it, hold it down real hard until I can make an impression
ñ looks like about a medium sized Phillips head screwdriver. OK and I got that just from
pushing hard and there you go. In a few minutes my finger will be as good as new.
Alright so the screws are out and thereís the hinge. Hereís the box. Weíll just take
it all inside. So there we have the glove-box out of my 2000
Buick Century. OK so you can see the hinge was mounted by driving these screws into these
plastic holes that were part of the moulded plastic under-body of the glove box itself.
Iím going with JB Weld, Iíve been using it a lot recently. This one in my hand here
is the slow setting ñ a very, very strong product. They also make another product called
JB Kwik. OK hereís an open package of J-B KWIK epoxy resin and hardener that Iíve used
before and Iím going to use on this project because itís already opened and I know that
a five minute epoxy is good enough. OK so Iím just going to get in here with my screwdriver
and see if thereís anything thatís loose that I can remove. The epoxy that I put in
before is holding nicely, itís just that I broke it ñ put too much stress against
it and it shattered. You can see itís just a very light plastic fabrication. Thereís
the last one there on the end. You can see, you know itís not a lot of surface area there
to bond to so youíre going to need something thatís quite strong.
OK Iíll just put some tape across the face of this thing to protect it from any stray
epoxy that might get away from me here. Put a little across the back like that.
So long as Iíve got the glove box off Iíll talk about this little device back here. What
it is is itís a cylinder with a spring in it and a plunger and Iíll just pull on the
plunger. What that is is thatís a control for the glove box door and it controls how
quickly or how slowly the door opens. Itís just a little nozzle with a valve in the end
of that to control the speed of the air. OK so I like to mix it up on, you know, old
yoghurt container lids, that kind of thing. Iím going to use the JB Kwik 5 minute epoxy
so Iím going to have to work quickly. Iím going to mix it 50:50 right here on the lid
and you have to stir it extremely well so I like to use like a little wooden stirring
stick, a little coffee swizzle or here Iíve got a little straw thatís good for it or
even this little spoon ñ itís just a little dessert spoon. Anyways itíll be good for
mixing epoxy as well, right? Like I said, you want to mix this up fifty-fifty. Alright
thereís a little pad of five lines all of about, I donít know, an inch and a half long.
OK there we go, itís five lines. There we go, that little dessert spoon works just perfect,
should have mixed more, actually. Iíll apply it across the back of this thing. You see
Iím not being shy about getting it on here. You want lots of good goopy thick coverage
so that no matter how I make contact on the other side, itís going to stick and itís
going to make a permanent bond. Oh crap. Hurry, hurry, hurry. OK so now, Iím going to drop
this in here right back to where it was before. Thatís all there is to it. The gluing partís
not that difficult, of course. Itís all put back together now, here it is. Weíre going
to let that cure ñ as I said this is a five minute epoxy I used so if we were in a shop
and I was trying to make a living doing this Iíd be installing it in the car in, oh an
hour or two, probably ñ however this is from my car and I have all the time in the world
so Iím going to let it cure for twenty four hours. Now for clean up all you really need
is a wet cotton rag and you just rub on it. And as long as it hasnít cured yet, this
is true with just about any epoxy, as long as it hasnít cured yet. So now weíre good
to go, it feels really solid. It feels like it really made good contact so Iím just going
to leave it alone until tomorrow. OK and now that I know that thatís seven
millimetres weíll just come over here. OK so itís the next day, itís not quite
twenty-four hours but itís quick setting. Alright so, you want to put this thing back
in just the opposite to the way you took it out. Which was dip it in one corner and then
dip it in the other corner. Temporarily close it on the latch. There we go. And now we can
get underneath and start installing our screws. OK snug. OK so you just push that back up
ñ thereís some little keepers here, one here and one there. OK got the wire here.
OK there we go. Alright so you just push that through together so that it clips. Make sure
the switch is working. OK and just before weíre finished, thereís only one thing left
to do and thatís connect the cord here that connects the slow-open piston that I showed
you earlier to the side of the door. So Iíll just show you right in here thatís the anchor
point that we just pull that up on to. I wish I could have shown you how I did that. What
I did was I took it there on one screwdriver ñ I put it on the end of the screwdriver,
I pushed the screwdriver to the target and then I took a second screwdriver and pushed
it over so that it looped on. There you go: another job well done.