I completed this back in March, and it has held up admirably so far. Unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful in uploading the file until now.

 

Very nice and thorough Zane.

Thanks for taking the time post.

FAQ mods?

 

Good work.

Is this the typical failure mode of these cupholders? Or is this unique? I've been hearing about broken cupholders for ages and often wondered what it was, exactly, that broke.

Cheers
DD

 

Not sure but I believe so. Reports of "won't stay closed" and in my case - wouldn't hold a cup very well either, while open .....not that they hold a cup all that well when not broken.....

 

I have the same problem. This is an interesting "cure", but as your last slide predicts, I wonder how long it will stay adhered?

My idea was somewhat uglier: I received for Christmas a nice container of InstaMorph: an inexpensive container of plastic beads that, when poured into boiling water, will temporarily form a blob of moldable plastic. Upon cooling, it feels as hard as the plastic on the original armrest.

My plan was to melt the beads, form it into something that would accept the "pin" from the cupholder, and hold it there while it cooled. Then shave the messy bits off so the armrest closed properly, and try crazy-glueing the formed InstaMorph plastic to the arm rest. I'm pretty confident the InstaMorph bit would retain the pin adequately, but I'm struggling to think of a better way to adhere the mold to the arm rest. Can anyone suggest a better material to bond the two bits?

 

I jumped in the car last Friday afternoon in a bit of a hurry as I was a li'l bit late leaving one of our plants to get to a meeting at another. It was hot inside, maybe 85 deg F out and baking in the sun all day. Anyway, I was a bit brusque in closing the open cup-holder when I got in, and it rebelled by popping right back open. Subsequent one-handed persuasion on the drive home after the aircon had cooled us both nicely revealed that with very careful attention and finesse, it would remain closed....until I hit any kind of sizeable bump in the road, at which point it would spring open again. So I guess I got just more than a year out of my repair. Yesterday, I had an opportunity to pull the lid off and have a good look at it. Couldn't see any issue, the epoxy was holding well, everything looked in order. I decided the solution would be to install a second loop of zip-tie alongside the first one mentioned in the pdf. It was there specifically to prevent the cupholder from springing open when jostled. However, couldn't seem to get another one in there. So I cut and removed the existing one, then threaded two different size (and color) zip-ties before looping them around - going in flat it seems there was room for both. Tied it off and re-installed the cup-holder hinge-pins to their proper location and it seems all good for now.


Unbroken side, still looking good:



Broken side after removal of tuning zip-tie:

The pins on both sides still look good:


Updated repair, cup-holder closed:

Updated repair, cup-holder open:

 

Thanks for taking the time to document this, Aholbro1.

I have come to rely on the little pocket of space between drivers seat, console,
and seat belt holder; t's actually quite a smart compromise.

 

Randy 1's question is now answered. After putting 2 1/4 years on the "epoxy tie strap" fix with only a bit of looseness and having it occasionally pop open when slightly bumped on ingress on a very hot day after 8+ hours of hot-soak, I had to loan the XJ to my lovely daughter for 2 days of commuting whilst I accomplished a renewal of the rear lower arm bushes and rear shocks on her 2003 S-Type, and awaited an appointment at the alignment shop. Overall, total damages were minimal: A lost battery cover on the FOB and a re-broken cupholder! (In fairness, the battery cover probably not entirely chargeable to her, as I'd dropped the FOB about a week earlier and it popped off. On re-fitting, I never got a sense of a click or locking-home of it. While replacing a worn button on the other FOB, I inspected both carefully and realize the FOB I loaned her had a missing cover retention bar - so it probably broke off when I dropped it.


But enduring Wed. thru Fri. commuting with a cupholder that would neither close, nor retain a cup while open, convinced me I needed to effect a second repair.


The tie-strap shown in the previous repair had come loose from the epoxy at the top end. After removing it from the bottom (that side wasn't coming loose from operation of the cup-holder for quite some time!) I inspected the mechanism's geometry and formulated a different repair approach.
There does not appear to be any "give" in the device to which the two hinge-pins are molded, though each pin has a chamfer on one side. Consequently, it is a pop-fit of sorts and between two largely inelastic parts. Therefore, there is limited engagement between the pins and their receptacles.


I decided a washer epoxied to the inboard edge of the broken receptacle would be the way to go, but also considered trying to force the cupholder into place afterward would either break the washer out of its epoxy mounting, break the other intact receptacle, or perhaps break a hinge-pin.
I was equally convinced an attempt to epoxy the washer in-situ would result in a non-pivoting cup-holder, either always open or always closed, depending on which position it was in when I clamped it up for curing.


In practice, I first had to grind away the epoxy used to fix the tie-strap in place to have a nice, smooth, level, bed for the washer to adhere to. Then I had to grind a few flats on the washer to accomplish good fit. Finally, I covered the hinge-pin with "Glad-Wrap" fit the washer over it, held the pins in place and closed the cupholder. I used a bungie-cord tie-down to hold the mechanism in-place against the opposing spring-pressure. After successful dry-fit, I mixed a bit of generic 2-part epoxy from Harbor Fright, looks like J. B. Weld but isn't....and dobbed it on the inboard surface of the broken hinge receptacle. Re-fit the whole mess as before, then placed the entire arm-rest on it's side and applied a bit of clamp-pressure to the leading edge of the washer to make sure it was firmly held flush against the inboard edge of the receptacle. The cupholder held it firm at the back, but tended to kick the front of the washer inboard, creating a gap.


A day later and everything seems solid. Trimmed the excess glad wrap and will refit the arm rest later today and start tracking how long this repair holds up.

 

I'm starting to see a lot of the 2003 XJ (and XK8 too I believe) armrests starting to show up used on eBay more and more often now, and sometimes for cheap. There was one for $20 the other day. And I picked one up at a junkyard for less than $10.

The 2003 improved design has the metal hinges which solves the issue entirely. You do have to have the whole cupholder and its vinyl cover as the hinges require a slightly different design of the cover. But you can recover or repaint the cover to match your armrest, or if lucky find one the right color. While the armrests themselves seem to dry out and crack over time, the vinyl cover of the cupholders seem to hold up well.

Just another option

BTW the new improved cupholders sell new for around $200, which is kinda nuts. But again, finding them used is becoming more common if you are patient.

.

 

Well....2nd fix method only lasted a year, or not quite half as long as my first attempt. Still, it was an easier, quicker fix than the zip-tie solution, so I repeated it, maybe another year's worth...