So the glovebox in my 2008 XKR recently started flopping open with no damping. I read up on all the excellent threads here and embarked on the repair, making great progress. See the pictures below: I used a cotter pin and the mechanism all worked great in trial runs.




Installed it back in the car and the very next morning it was back to flopping open. Looked underneath to find that the whole dang arm had sheared off at the lid. Ugh and double ugh. I guess I strung the cord a bit too taut but c’mon - is it that sensitive?





I’ve already checked and the whole box needs to be replaced, the lid is not available separately. At $2,700 or so, I think I’ll let it flop open for a while. I may be motivated to remove the box again and try to epoxy back the arm with a bit of aluminum reinforcement or something, but not just now. Anyone have any other suggestions? Thanks in advance!!

 

Can you not just install some sort of spring cupboard hinge inside?

 

A bunch of JBWeld will hold that together for years. If you want to be extra sure, reinforce it with something and use even more JBWeld.
If you take your time and think Physics the whole time, it'll be super strong and nobody will ever notice.

 

I would just use some 2 part epoxy that is in a syringe for $6 and mix it up and apply it. You can always paint it after it dries with some flat black paint, and no one will ever know.

 

JBWeld already is two-part epoxy, but it's more like clay and won't run and drip everywhere which makes it MUCH easier to place. It's also stronger. Plus it's already black.

 

Racerxf12004, can I have your XKE?

 

Strongly suggest you fabricate 2 aluminum angle braces and screw them in position to the lid with the arm attached.
Drill holes for the screws, dont just force them into the ABS substrate and arm. Your 16 year old ABS parts may be somewhat brittle with age.
I drilled and tapped mine for 2-56 machine screws. Use a minimum of 8 screws.
Take your time and ensure the arm is in the exact correct position on the glovebox door before drilling and tapping the aluminum and substrate.
Install the screws.
Then remove the screws and aluminum braces and epoxy the arm to the door using JB weld or PC7 epoxy.
While the epoxy is still uncured install and tighten the screws to the braces and arm.
Let the assembled door and arm epoxy cure for 7 days.
Then attach the cord to the arm.
I allowed a bit of play in the cord so the glovebox door dropped about .5 inches before getting tight to the cord.

If you dont repair it properly, you risk breaking the door hinges at or near the steel hinge pins in the glovebox frame.
Yes you can remove and reuse the steel hinge pins if needed at a later date. Separate story.
I had to rebuild my glove box door a few months ago due to repeated door dropping and door breakage near the hinge pins.
The door only is not a servicable (replaceable) item as Jaguar never expected anyone to be able to remove the hinge pins to separate the door from the frame.

Take your time, do it right and you will be pleased with the result.

Bob

 

Not a fan of JB weld but you can get a plastic weld kit from Harbor Freight for under $20 and they are very easy to use. It's a blind spot fix anyway so looks not important. Th kit comes with the plastic strips too.

 

I repaired my glove box last day and to me this is ABS plastic. Epoxy might work but it's a piece that's in tension yet thin so I'm not sure about the durability as is. I would suggest using liquid epoxy glue and reinforce it on the jonction with some kind of material. If you don't have a piece of glass fiber somewhere you might just use some polyester toile fabric you might find somewhere in the house.
Fiber+epoxy will work forever.

 

Thanks all for the advice.

After calming down I went back and examined the break. At the moment I’m toying with the idea of an internal “plug brace” that I would shape to fit internally at both ends and liberally epoxy in place. See this pic where I was using a scrap piece to get a handle on the size of the plastic plug needed. I’ve ordered some thicker plastic bar stock and will experiment with it when it comes in.





After studying the JB Weld site extensively I’ve also ordered some JB Weld Plastic Bonder - supposedly it’s better than the original for plastic and is also good for filling gaps. And it’s also black in color.

I am indeed toying with small aluminum angles for additional bracing, or I may use some fiberglass cloth and press it into some epoxy (on the outside) - I’ve done this a couple of times on other cars and it’s a decent way to fix things - the fiberglass sets up in the epoxy layer and adds a lot of strength.

I don’t think that plastic welding will work in this situation. If you look closely at one of the pics in my original post, you’ll see that the arm has broken off beneath the “skin” of the glovebox. Any fix will need to bond the these two broken ends and maybe also brace to the glovebox skin, not only bond to the skin. Hopefully this makes sense…

Will keep you posted, the challenge will be to find the time to do this!

 

Excellent - I was typing my response including the fiberglass idea at the same time you posted this! Thanks!

 

So my plastic bar stock came in, and it looked like it might just work for an internal brace of the separated arm. While playing around with all this, I tugged on the damper cord a couple of times and the dang damper mounting snapped right off! See this pic of the damper in my hand and the back of the glovebox where it had been attached. I will confess that several choice words were uttered.



So then the task changed to trying to recover from this latest situation. I was able to JB Plastic Weld the crap out of the mounting points, using fiberglass strips to reinforce, and I *think* I have preserved the functionality. It doesn’t look pretty, but I’m thinking that it’ll work.



And then I discovered an interesting point. The damper appears to have considerable “stiction” in that getting it to move initially takes a very strong pull, and then it slides much more freely. This is not position dependent, as if you work it back and forth it will start smoothly from the initial position, but let it rest for a few minutes and the stiction is back. I tried lubricating it with some silicone spray to no avail. It looks like the damper is available by itself, part number C2P2709, for the relatively modest cost of $55 or so. Now I have no idea if a new damper will also exhibit the same stiction, but I decided that I would absolutely hate it if I reused the existing one, broke the glovebox again, and then realized that a new damper would’ve solved the problem.

So that’s the status. A new damper is on order (apparently available but a special order part) and things are a bit on hold until it comes in.

 

So the new damper came in - approx $58 including tax and shipping. Looks pretty much identical to the old damper except the body is a bit more opaque.



I lost no time in checking it out last night. Sure enough, the extension and retraction of the wire is nice and smooth and even - not a hint of stiction, completely unlike the old one. I was so enthused that I made a video and uploaded it to youtube - see below. In the video I am tugging outwards on both dampers with the wires linked - so the exact same tension applied to each. The difference is night and day with the old one experiencing significant stiction on both extension AND retraction. After a couple of cycles the stiction almost goes away, but comes right back after sitting for just a few minutes.

So there you have it, folks! Jaguar’s original plastic wire attachment might well not fail if it weren’t for the stiction behavior developing in the damper. Their own method of fixing the issue might also not survive if the damper is not also replaced. So for anyone who experiences this type of damper failure, you’d be well advised to check on the damper action and replace it if you notice stiction, and not simply install a beefed up attachment point!

For information, my car is a 2008 MY with only 19,xxx miles and one owner, when I bought it last year. The glovebox couldn’t have been “used up”, so this may be a problem of disuse rather than wearing out.

 

Ram G, the exact same thing happened to me...this whole cheap-a$$ plastic arm broke off in my glovebox too (thanks to a moron @ the Jag dealership...)!
Here's what I did to fix it: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...8/#post2669495

And the other end of the leather strap (cut out from one of my old belts) has been attached to the damper string thanks to a little screw. Et voilà.

 

So with confidence that the new damper wasn’t going to over stress the plastic arm, I proceeded to put things back together with the JB Weld Plastic Bonder.

As stated, I shaped a piece of plastic bar stock to be an internal brace between the arm and the lid, and epoxied it to both ends and epoxied the ends together.






Then I epoxied pieces of fiberglass cloth all around to be external reinforcement. The result of all of this was a strong albeit rather ugly bond between the glovebox lid and the plastic arm.





As suggested by @Boga , I installed the damper with a bit of slack so it wasn’t constantly tugging on the arm.



The glovebox has now been back in the car for almost a week, and it works fine. Let’s hope it lasts!!

 

I’ve discussed the fact that the old damper had a lot of stiction that the new one doesn’t.

When I first removed the glovebox from the car, the top of it was extremely “dusty”. Investigation revealed that the foam wrap around the wires that plugged into various points on the glovebox (12V outlet, illumination, switch) was completely perished and falling apart as this gritty sand-like powder.




As part of my repair, I peeled off the dry-rotted wrap and installed new cloth wrap (I also experimented with a plastic loom, seen to the right). Please forgive the dirty feet that so inconsiderately photobombed the picture!



Even though I don’t have definitive evidence, I highly suspect that the grit from the old foam got into the body of the damper and messed with the sliding piston, causing the observed stiction. Moral of the story - check this wiring as part of the fix, in case you encounter this glovebox issue…

 

One good thing about JBWeld is that you can sand it smooth if you ever get annoyed by the rough appearance. Paint may also help, sparingly.
Good Job also!