How to repair your cupholder & make $ doing it
 

I just bought my F150 about a month ago. Upon purchase, the dash cupholder was stuck in a depressed state in the dash. The owner told me he lost the spring from the back of the cupholder. So, I went to a local Pull-A-Part wrecking yard and removed this dual ash tray/cupholder combo unit from an Expy. I paid $1.60 with tax for it. (That's their standard price for an ashtray).

http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/4...08391small.jpg

After getting it home, I took my dremmel tool to the back of it and cut the rivets out that were holding it in place on the ash tray combo unit.

http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/1...08380small.jpg
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/5...08381small.jpg

Then I took my original ashtray and drilled two tiny holes and picked up a couple of 1/4" screws from my local hardware store.

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/1112/dsc08382small.jpg

Then I screwed the spring to the back of my original cupholder:

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/7...08383small.jpg


Then I put the ashtray combo unit that I purchased for $1.60 (which now has no spring) on ebay. It sold for ~$40..

Pretty crazy to me that someone will pay this much for a dirty springless cupholder set. I think I listed it fairly though, I show pictures of it being dirty and specify in the listing that the spring was removed.

I have the same problem ill have to give this a try, thanks :thumbsup:

lol I read the title and thought you found some change in it. Ive sold a few stock cd players on there and I was surprised how high they went for.

ha I did the exact same thing to mine when it broke... great minds think alike!

Good idea!! I've had that damn spring sitting in my glove compartment for nearly 3 yrs haha...thought about using epoxy but this is better

It's super easy to do, probably took me 12 minutes.

is there any art to taking it out or do i just rip it out? I guess alot of people have the spring problem?

there are two plastic parts to press down while sliding it out, one on each side on the top of the cupholders, just stick two flathead screwdrivers in there and press down and pull the cupholders out

How I removed my cup holder...
 

I was able to remove the cupholder easily, too, but no tools needed. :)
First, pull out as far as the cupholder can go.
Now, from underneath, squeeze two plastic clips inward/toward each other.
(One clip on each rail.)
Pull the cup holder completely out while holding the plastic clips.

Drill/screw the spring back in place, reinstall the cupholder.

i wish i would of seen this about 1 month ago, i threw out my spring when i was cleaning out my truck, and just decided to leave the cup holder open all the time....

Thanks, DonkeyShark, for your post. I was definitely yelling quite loudly with this thing (Never seems to help, though). Got it all fixed thanks to you and others on this post.

I hope you don't mind, but I grabbed one of your pix and pointed out the tabs that have to be depressed. Hopefully you can see it below.

https://www.f150online.com/forums/me...htray-part.jpg

Cheers->

HobsonDude

I guess I am just lazy. I used some 3M two sided tape about 4 years ago and it has worked fine ever since.

I just did mine a couple weeks ago with epoxy

Super-glued mine. :thumbsup:

awsome thread.... now to a "how to"