Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

Hi,

I'm sure I'm missing something painfully obvious, but I'm really struggling to remove my glovebox. Can someone give me some pointers please?

There are 4 screws (2 behind the opening flap at the bottom, and 2 behind the trim that sits over the opening.) to remove and then 3 or 4 plastic clips you need to twist to unlock.

Thanks envoy

I've found the 2 behind the opening flap but the 2 behind the trim are eluding me. Do I need to pop he trim off of the compartment above the glove box to access them?

Also, will I find the clips under the trim as well?

Pull the trim off the front of the glove box gently or you'll break the tabs

As for the clips, they are down in the footwell and hold a cardboard trim in place.

Aha, I think I've already had those clips off then. I removed the cardboard panel in the footwell and found two handles behind the glovebox which I turned and it released the cardboard panel from the glovebox.

So the trim I need to remove is above or below the compartment above the glovebox?

Thanks again for your help on this. I'm sure it's childishly simple to do which is what makes it all the more frustrating!!

Dilinja wrote: So the trim I need to remove is above or below the compartment above the glovebox?

It is the compartment, the trim is the surround

To remove the trim around the cubby hole above the glove box,

a) Open the glove box
b) feel underneath the black trim at the top of the glovebox....
c) Should feet some flattish plastic lugs
d) You need to gently tease these of the plastic retainers, and then pull the bottom edge of the trim towards you
e) The top tabs of the cubby hole front trim will give quite suddenly
f) The complete front trim can now be removed and put somewhere safe.

You should now see 2 No 2 Philips Head "X" self tapping screws
Remove these,

All that is left are about 5 black plastic turn-buckle in the black cradboardy trim in the roof of the passenger footwell.

You simply need to insert a medium sized flat screw driver into the slots in the heads, and turn 1/4 turn anti clock-wise.

Give the card-board trim panel a bit of a waggle / shake to allow the turnbuckles to disengage from there sockets.

The panel should now fall away

You need to unplug the wire connector from the glovebox light

Remove the glovebox light

Pull the whole glove box out towards you...

sort of beat me to it...

Your both legends, thank you for your help and patience and thank you robsey for the idiots guide (you could tell I needed it eh? )

Nah, didn't think you were an idiot,

It just helps if you have done it a few times, as you get the idea of what warped minds the engineers / designers at Vauxhall have.

The tricky stuff is things like changing the heater panel bulb... what a ball ache that is,
or seeing how weird the method is to remove the head-light switch...

It helps to have a haynes manual...they were still quite useful manuals upto about 1998... total rubbish after that point.

Oh dear....

I am trying to change the heater bulb, lol

The slider to choose air blowing up or down has broken (only moves in the middle) so I thought I'd remove the assembly and try to kill two birds with one stone

The official method is

Remove the cowling around the steering collumn

Remove the black plastic panels around the instrument head.
The bottom one has to be "bent" out at the middle, so that the location lugs at the ends release from behind the panels on either end
then unscrew the panel above the instrument panel

then remove your clock to the left of the heater panel

remove 2 x No 2 philips screws from behind the clock
and another 2 screws on the right hand end of the heater panel.

Undo the bowden cable for the hot/cold adjustment - this is found on the left side of the drivers foot well, above another one of those cardboardy panels with the famous turn-buckles.

The heaterpanel should be able to be pulled out enough to detatch the cables or the lower two sliders at the heater panel end.

Once you've done this, then the entire panel may be removed - you may need to lever out the top of the radio surround panel to allow the heater panel to be released.

You can then swap your single poxy bulb on the panel... and the bowden cable should be attached up by the side of the glove box - high up above the right side of the passenger footwell.

Then as they say in Haynes-vlle refitting is a reversal of removal.

Thanks for all your help Robsey. Got this sorted yesterday. A good few hours of dismantling the car dollowed by much effing and jeffing resulted in my looking in muted disappointment at how p*** poor the illumination behind the heater assembly is

Still, its better than no illumination and I got to fix my heater controls at the same time. Turned out the bowden cable for the directional vents had snagged inside the assembly and bent double on itself. This meant it was essentially fixed on venting the air through the top vents. One quick bend later and I can now heat up my feet again

But wow, what a ball ache for one poxy bulb...

I know what you mean... i did mine last year...