In reply to aircooled :
That sounds like Dremel/Sawzall/angle grinder territory to me. Who knows what Ian did to the car.
In reply to aircooled :
That sounds like Dremel/Sawzall/angle grinder territory to me. Who knows what Ian did to the car.
electric glovebox.....the answer to a question that nobody ever, ever asked....
Noddaz said:Engineers are really going out of their way on vehicles...
Engineers build what the designers want and the bean counters can afford. Stop your ignorance.
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :
Are you aware that some of your responses lately have been pretty harsh?
Your point is valid, but it could have been worded better.
Are you ok?
Depending on how they wired that up, maybe if you could get the switch out of the dash and connect a battery negative to a ground point and the positive to the switch harness plug, it might fire the little actuator to release the door? Unless, of course, the switch goes to an input on the body control module (if it were Mercedes, of course, there would be a separate Handschuhfachsteuermodul) and the BCM decides if it will grant the request from the button.
I can kind of see the advantage - easier to mold the door since it's a single piece now, don't need a separate lock cylinder that has to be kept straight on a per-car basis at assembly, slightly quicker to install, and now you can be assured that if the car is locked, the glove box is locked since all you need to do is not allow power to the release switch if the doors are locked and the car is off or the proximity key isn't nearby or whatever.
As Dad would say, though: Just another damned thing that's gonna break.
More or less what everyone has already said:
If it did matter, a brand new complete glove box assy (door, housing, actuator, etc) is $200 or less, so IMO breaking stuff is perfectly acceptable. I'd start with one of those flat pry bars, centered at the top of the door. It looks like both sides of the door have a latch plunger (but only one actuator, so there is some rack-and-pinion or linkage mechanism inside the door?). If you want to be really clever, try to cut the two latches with a couple surgical plunge cuts from one of those oscillating multitools
The same actuator part# for the Blazer x-refs to 2014+ Corvette and Cadillacs. I suspect the glove box button only sends a "request signal" to the BCM, and the BCM then decides if it will tell the actuator to release. I also suspect that while Tesla might have a 'smart' actuator on CAN or whatever communication bus, GM would still have a 'dumb' actuator (mabuchi motor and limit switch) with the BCM simply applying power to the actuator. So maybe you could open the glovebox by applying 12V to the actuator directly, but only IF you had a complete wiring diagram AND you could find the right wire or connector without disassembling the entire dash or the rest of the interior.
I know the Good Idea Fairy is real (daily personal interaction), but I also believe someone must have asked the question answered by Electronic Glovebox Control. Y'all remember when some of ye olde cars came with a special 'valet key' which could not open the lock on the glove box or trunk, right? How do you manage the same thing when the car's only physical key is hidden inside the fob, the there is only one key cyl on the entire car and it is emergency-use-only behind a pry-off cover on the driver's door, and everything else is non-contact managed by various X-Control-Modules?
Market research indicates (or some sr. manager decides) customers are willing to pay for a lockable glove box. Engr team figures out this is the best way to add the feature and still meet cost requirements (parts bin actuator, leverage R&D from previous vehicles). Maybe a DFMEA meeting asks how to open the box if the battery dies or the BCM fails, and maybe the decision is "either the customer pays to replace the BCM, or the customer uses a pry bar before paying for a replacement glovebox assy". Or maybe nobody thinks of that failure mode b/c other cars already have EGC, and it probably won't kill anyone unlike 10^8 other possible failure modes. Regardless, the production Blazer ends up with a "valet mode" where a 4-digit PIN secures the glovebox along with all personal nav/infotainment data.
If the electric actuator dies, I think my 2004 Golf does not have any way to open the fuel filler door without drilling holes.
In reply to Oapfu :
No hidden release cable for the fuel door? I know my E46 has one in the trunk.
And now I'm wondering what to do if my fuel door cable releases ever fail....
In reply to David S. Wallens :
There is a hidden cable in the trunk. It's a pain to get to, but better than drilling.
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