Admins, maybe you'll move this thread to DIY?

My greetings to all the comrades here

I’ve got a broken glove box hinge on my 2004 B6, after some googling I realized that it’s a quite common problem and many good people suffer from Audi’s elegant design and parts’ pricing philosophy. That’s why I decided to fix the hinge myself and in case of any noticeable success to make this write-up.
Everything below is my personal experience, yours may and should be different, that’s life.

So, lets start, thanks to the guys from this video, the glove box removal was easy.

Next step – removal of the lid. I saw a few DIY articles, most of them say something smart like “Just pull out the pins with a pair of pliers”. No way. Even having the box laying conveniently upside down on the workbench it’s still a tough project. I used a mallet and a pair of stopping ring remover, banged quite hard with no result, then I heated up the hinges and only then could I pull the pins out. So guys I suggest not to skip the box removal step and not to pull the pins on the spot, believe me, most likely it will cost you a lot of cursing, skinned knuckles, damaged property and wasted time.



Finally I got the project looking like this.





As you can see a small piece of plastic was missing. That’s why it became evident that whatever method I choose to fix the hinge, I’ll have to fill the cavity with epoxy or whatever else compound. So first of all, I sealed the bottom of the cavity with some potting compound I found in my company’s machine shop.



Next day it looked like this.



My idea was to implant something like a bone, at the moment i had a piece of Stainless Steel tubing which looked good enogh for my project. The cavity in the hinge was just big enough to accomodate two bones like this so I decided to have two, why not?..



Marking the holes' projected location.



Something like this, plus or minus one micron - not a bid deal


Digging a centermark. This is important, so be careful and patient at this operation. If the drill slides and goes a wrong way - it's gonna screw up the whole project. At least you'll have to seal the bottom again.



Figuring out how deep we want the bone to go.



Important thing! Before drilling you want to realize precisely and have a physical feeling what angle the drill will to at. Obviously, you don wanna have a thru hole.. So take another minute making sure your hand will be moving the right way..



Start drilling. Slow, comrades, slow!



You see, the drill did slip and the second hole is quite far from its ideal position.. another portion of cursing and one more beam of bloody diarrhea to audi designers, but what's done is done..



Taking the real-size drill



One hole, looks so-so



even uglier



marking the bone





figuring appoximate bend position



bending

 

marking how long the other end of the bone will be



cutting



putting back in place



assembling, make sure you align the both hinges, it's quite easy to see if they go parallel



adjusting the angle a lil bit



assembling again, looks better now



finally, here's a sketch of how approximately our bones will look like, for those who use inches. Just print to the scale and you're good to go



for metric people (like I used to be)
Once you're armed with this scientific knowledge and documetation, go ahead and make up the second bone.



there's a rudimentary rib inside the hinge. It's so weak and thin, that it's obvious it's a molding leftover rather than a reinforcement element. It makes the space inside the hinge too small for the two bones, so I needed to cut it out. Your parts and materials are different from mine so decide to yourself if you need to remove the rib. I did.



So removing the rib using first available sharp object.. Be careful with sharp objects, by the way..



Done with the rib, shoud be enough room for two bones now..



That's how they gonna fit. Nice.



Now entering the realm of triks and russian ingenuity. The goal is to plug the end of the bone which goes into the body of the lid. The plug shouldn't necessarily be airtight, it should just hold in place somehow. My solution was a screw which more or less fitted the internal diameter of the bone (everything is meant to be performed for the both bones, obviously). So I inserted the screw inside appr. 0.25" deep and LIGHTLY tapped with a hammer. Just to hold it in place.



Then cut whatever sticks outside



And grind it to be extremely neat (optional)



Put the hinge back on, making sure the hinges are parallel and the pin holes are more or less coaxial. This is intact hinge. Measure from the edge to appr. center of the hole.



This is the victim. Looks more or less Ok, keep going..



Install the lid back on the box to see how it looks. This is the broken one.



This is intact one, so make necessary adjustments to make them look similar



Take everything apart again, remove the hinge being repaired and note the position of the bones. Next time we install them, they should be positioned the same way.

 

same thing from another prospective



now, using an available cutting tool making a few holes on the both ends of the bones for better bonding



so the bones look like this now



I used a potting adhesive compound I could find in our machine shop, I'm sure you can find something like this in a HomeDepot or Lowes



first, put some epoxy in the holes



then, temporarily seal with some electric tape the lateral holes only on the ends sticking out of the lid, insert the bones into their position noted before.
And then, start pumping epoxy into the bone. Got the idea? Align the nozzle and press it firmly against the hole's edges while pupmping epoxy into it so there will be some pressure inside the bone and the epoxy will have to find its way out thru the lateral holes on the other end. Theoretically, the epoxy shoul fill whatever cavities around the bone. Don't be too crazy about the amount of epoxy, approximately 2-3 internal volumes of the bone, listen to your intuition and common sense..



after you finished the both, remove the tape. If there's no epoxy spills out of the lateral holes when you unseal them - it's a good sign that a fair amount of epoxy went out of the bone on the other end and the idea works.



now they look like this



put the hinge on, make sure it's aligned properly, then carefully install the lid on the box, make necessary adjustments on the hinge position using whatever objects as shims etc..






fill the cavity in the hinge, don't be too crazy, take your time, avoid leakages, remember that you will need to apoxy it next day anyway..



and leave it to cure overnight



Ok. Next day taking out the lid and lookie.. Looks neat. Note, that some epoxy did soak from inside and appeared in the seam between the lid's plastic chassis and outer soft skin. So, once again, be reasonable with the amount of apoxy you pump into the lid.



Some more views of how it looks after first epoxying. Looks awesome I must say..







Ok, now using masking tape (I wouldn't use regular scotch tape or duct tape as they're pain in the butt to remove neatly after you finish) creating some sort of molding form to restore missing amount of plastic.. And carefully fill it with epoxy like this. Try to avoid leakages, so take extra care of the tape, use 2-3 overlapping layers. Use your common sense and creativity. Leave overnight to cure.



Next day remove the tape. I had a 10-inch run but it was very easy to scoop with my thumbnail and peel off .



I added some more apoxy to finalize the project, but it was barely necessary, so it's up to you. By the way, I filled also the intact hinge just in case.



Final look. Amazing. Feels as strong as a stone. Much stronger than the intact one before I epoxyed it. BTW you see what's happening: if you buy a new lid for, lets say, $250, you will be getting the same crappy shaky hinges and there'll still be risk of breaking them as it already happened. But this reinforcement idea gives you confidence that now you have much better thing almost for free, right?.

 

Ok, after assembling the lid back on the box I noticed that the lid brake or whatever shock absorber or retarder is broken like this and rocks at an angle causing uneven load on the hinge. I looked online hoping to find this little piece of plastic for a human price but found only repair kits (brake, lid and pins) for around $300 which is too smart for me to buy..
So lets go for another project.



one wing is broken off, you see the elegant reinforcement rib in the top as another monument for brilliant cheap plastic masters at audi.. Grind it down, making the surface flat and rough



should look like this



out of a piece of aluminum make an L-shaped thing like this. It should be of the same width as the intact wing or, if you have the both of them broken off, shoud be able to go thru the slit on the bracket on the box..



I made a couple of holes for a flat head 4-40 screw which is 0.112" or 3 mm. You see I screwed up a lil bit, but this much is not a big deal, you'll see it later



I used this adhesive as a better one for gluing applications. It may seem reasonable to glue the pieces first and then drill the holes.. Well that's what i did. BUT! When i was drilling the holes and making countersinks, the metal piece heated up and the glue (that epoxy I used for filling the hinge) failed and the piece fell off.. So i needed to remove the old epoxy and start over, but luckily it happened at the very last moment of drilling so I finished the screw thru holes.



After assembling with the nuts and epoxying we have the project looking like this.. I left it overnight for the epoxy to cure





next day - some filing for final adjustment and fitment, make sure you rounded the edges and make the sliding surface smooth..



Put some greaze on the inside surface of the bracket.



You see my bad in drilling - the screw sticks out a lil bit, just have a minute of fine filing..



here we go



Installation. Note, even with an extra piece of metal on the top there's still plenty of room inside the bracket..
Everything moves smooth and quiet now, ready to install in the car..



That's the end of the project, I hope, my idea will help you save $$$..
If you find this writeup cool and helpful, here's where you can buy me a beer: Paypal, vinogradov_alex2 dog mail dot ru

Good Luck, comrades!

 

So far works great!

 

Wow, thats way too much work.

I'd take one out of a junk yard car for 40.00....

You don't have to remove the glove box. You use wire cutters. Put them on the lip of the roll pins and hit the pliers with a hammer and the pins come right out. It literally takes about 6 minutes to change the lid and brake

 

Sounds like you live in a perfect world.. I wasn't that lucky
As I specifically mentioned above my pins didn't want to go at all, so i needed to heat the plastic to extract them..
I am a mechanical engineer and with years developed ability to feel when material going to brake, so I'm telling you if I banged harder I'd have definitely caused more damage to the lid and the box..
Also my experience and education keep me away from extrapolating my particular experience on everybody - if it takes you 6 minutes to remove the lid - good for you, if you're able to find same color/condition used lid nearby - great to hear this story as well.. In my area 07405 this sounds like a fairytale

 

Hey man, just wanted to say good work and thanks for the detailed post, it was very helpful when I took my glove box apart and fixed the hinge, because there weren't any clear videos on youtube of the process, I decided to make one. Let me know what you think