Turning the ashtray into a phone holder/charger

[Canonman67]

I haven't smoked in almost fifteen years and the ashtrays in our trucks suck as a place to keep coins so I figured I'd use mine as a place to keep my phone. I'm basing the entire thing on an eight inch full extension drawer guide.
I had to trim the wiper bracket to get the box to fit.
I laid out a box on an old Priority Mail envelope, cut it out and taped it together to see how it fit.

I really suck at taking pictures as I go but here's the current mockup.

Right now the tab on back is slated to be cut off since the charger I plan to use will hit the wiper assembly.

The unit is about 1 3/4" deep so I'm not sure it'll work on the box itself. I may mount it just inside the hole, I'll have to see how hard it would be to use there. It looks like the widest you can make the box is 2 1/2" if you plan to use the arms on the front to hold the box. My plan is to make the front tall enough to use both the handle screws and the arms to secure it to the front.

You can probably make the box 7" deep but no more than that since it'll hit the passenger side wiper arm. The slide itself is out of the way.

The angle on the face of the dash is about 22 degrees.
Tomorrow if I can find a battery that isn't flat or hard to get to I'm going to cycle the wipers to check clearances. Once I see where things are at I'll finalize my design and post the measurements I end up with.

[sargentrs]

Interesting design. Looking forward to your update.

[Canonman67]

Spent a little time on the former ashtray today. Started by cutting the tin to be bent.

The shop doesn't have a brake so I cobbled together a makeshift anvil.

It wasn't pretty but it got the job done.

After some welding and a lot of grinding I had a box that could work.

I folded the tabs on the front inside to avoid messing with the angle of the face.

I'm using the screws that hold the handle and the tabs on the side to attach face. You can also see the screws that hold the box to the slide poking up through the bottom.
It doesn't look too bad at this point.

Though the gaps aren't perfect I'm happy with the results. Nothing catches and it slides in and out smoothly.

From the normal seating position it looks good and when I finally get the radio in you won't be able to tell that it's not a normal ashtray until you pull it out.

In the shot above you can also see where I trimmed the wiper motor bracket for clearance.

At this point I'm thinking a billet handle from Ranchero50 would top things off.

The details:
The floor of the box is 7" long, The angle of the dash is 22 degrees and unfortunately I forgot to get a measurement at the top of the box. The total height of the front is 4 3/8", the sides and the back are 2 3/8" high while the width is 2 1/2". There is about 1 1/2" clearance between the back of the box and the wiper assembly. I'm planning to replace the screws on the bottom and the sides, probably with rivets but at this point I'm not sure. I think I've figured out how to put the charger assembly in the back at an angle so there's going to be one more installment of this saga.

[Canonman67]

I thought you might like a couple of shots of the drawer extended.

And the passenger's view.

[Canonman67]

I was able to mount the charger on the back of the box. I made a simple L bracket and put it in at a modest angle through a slot in the side.

I also cut out a portion of the back so the charger ends up half in and half out of the box.

There's about 1/2-3/4" between the unit and the wiper assembly.

You can see the tab I made to attach the slide to the wiper bracket. Except for painting and changing the machine screws I'm using to hold things together that's pretty much all I'm doing with this. I'm still looking for another way to attach the slide to the bottom of the box. I might tack the nuts to the bottom and cut the screws to length then build up the bottom of the box with a neoprene pad. The sides I'm definitely going to rivet. I might coat the inside and the charger bracket with plastidip just to keep from scarring my phone. The phone in the pics is a Microsoft 640XL hopefully that will help you gauge the size of the thing.

[sargentrs]

Great work, Canonman! The plastidips' a great idean. Have you operated the wipers to see if they don't wobble on you? Might want to check before you button everything back up. If you're pivot bushings are worn, they'll have some fore/aft travel to them.

[Canonman67]

Have you operated the wipers to see if they don't wobble on you? Might want to check before you button everything back up. If you're pivot bushings are worn, they'll have some fore/aft travel to them.

Thanks for the reminder, I've cycled them which isn't the same as letting them run. I'll have to remember to do that next weekend when I'm at the shop to be sure of the clearances.

[Canonman67]

Just an update I did finally get back to this mini project and ran the wipers. Turned out I had to trim 1/16" off the bracket that held the charger assembly. I'm pleased with the result and am now considering lining the inside with the same material they make mouse pads out of.

[sargentrs]

Great work! The mouse pad material sounds like a good idea.

[hardlyrider]

Nice worK! You might consider bed liner touch-up in a spray can. I've used it for several projects. It hides imperfections and will leave a nice rubberized surface that won't scratch. Even if you later abandoned the phone use, the whole idea of a useful drawer is much better than the ashtray!

[Canonman67]

Thanks Hardlyrider, I'm going to give that a try.

[Zorm]

Nice idea, maybe add a coin holder from something