The sun is your enemy. It hates your Corvette.
As any owner of Corvettes knows, all that window glass bakes theinterior of your car. For our project '86 Corvette, sitting in the sunfor three years without a car cover to protect the insides took its tollon the hard plastic parts and soft interior coverings. Even the gloveboxdoor, seemingly out of the sun's rays in the center of the car, was notimmune to damage. The latch mechanism, also embrittled by the sun, hadbroken off requiring us to keep the glovebox closed by resting our armon top of it while driving. The fix: a new glovebox door from ZipProducts (PN I-1329 for '84-'89 Corvettes).
Changing out the door is a simple process on the '86. All that'srequired is a Phillips screwdriver, some electrical tape, and about fiveminutes. The result: a nice fitting, easily closing new glovebox door.Read on.
Our glovebox was warped by...
Our glovebox was warped by the sun. Note the front edge of the softcovering materials, which has pulled away from the door structure.
Our latch mechanism had broken...
Our latch mechanism had broken off, another victim of the sun's heatembrittling the plastic parts.
Remove all of the screws visible...
Remove all of the screws visible on the underside of the door, startingwith the two screws holding the courtesy light in place. The light plateis then fed through the hole in the plastic panel.
Removing all of the screws...
Removing all of the screws in the panel makes it easier to remove thelight. Then the door is removed by unscrewing the six screws at the baseof the door. Note the electrical tape used to hold the wire in place.Try not to pull the wire out of the console, as you'll have to feed itback down the hole when completed to keep it from catching in the hinge.
New and old door-warp comparison....
New and old door-warp comparison. The original covering material hadwarped to the point it wasn't fixable.
Reversing the earlier process,...
Reversing the earlier process, replace the door screws while taping thewire in place. Reinstall all of the door-hinge screws. No adjustmentsare necessary to final-fit the door.