Cup Holders

My wife and I always wished we had cup holders in our other Vanagon, so I decided to try to figure something out this time. This is what I ended up with. So far I thing this is one of the nicest features we've added to the van. The only down side is that if you have a big drink, it blocks the gauges I added. If I ever get ambitious I'll shift the oil pressure and coolant temp gauges to the right, and put the voltage gauge on the left. You can still see them all, but you have to move your head to one side.

I got the plastic inserts from veada.com The style I chose is here.

First I drew the circles. The driver side is a little tight, but ended up having enough room. If I did it again, I would figure out the exact oval shape the hole needs to be from the beginning. I started with a circle, and enlarged it to an oval. That was time consuming.

Next I cut the top vinyl layer with a utility knife.

Next I cut the foam layer.

Then I cut through the metal with a hole saw. I didn't have a large enough hole saw, so I had to cut the rest with a jig saw. You can see that I had the dash out to do this. The main reason I removed the dash was to replace the front heater core.

At this point I added some painters tape to the top to protect the finished side.

I put some tape on the saw foot too.

Then it was a very slow process of enlarging the holes by various methods until the inserts fit at the proper angle.

Here they fit pretty well after a lot of enlarging.

Since the dash slopes I needed something to adapt the cup inserts to match the angle. I ended up using a rubber plumbing coupler. I just cut it with a utility knife. It wasn't quite big enough so there is a slight gap at the windshield side. It's not noticeable though.

Here's a test fit.

Here they are in the Van. They fit the standard fast food cups, and water bottle too. You can see here how they block my gauges if you have a big cup in the drivers side. It wouldn't be bad if you had the least used gauge on the left.

After Market Gauges

After installing a new engine I knew I wanted to have more instruments than the standard Vanagon cluster includes. I had bought some VDO gauges a long time ago for this. My first installation of these gauges was really simple, but after the first test drive I decided the location (to the left of the column under the air vent) was really hard to see. I decided to put them in individual pods right in the middle of the dash up by the windshield.

Even though I had VDO gauges I decided to see if I could make these Autometer pods work. I wasn't too impressed by the VDO style, and they were over twice the cost.

The down side is that the Autometer pod is really too small for the VDO gauge (especially the light holder). I had to do some creative wiring to make it all fit. For the light, I cut off the barrel on the female space connector, and soldered the wire to the side of the connector. Then I curled everything around just so to allow it all to come out the back of the pod.

I put some shrink tube around the wires here they come out.

I mounted the bases so they would be pointing directly at the driver. The grommets had to be shifted to the side a little to fit.

I added some terminal strips near the glove box.

Here they are hooked up. I ran 6 wires to the engine bay (right terminal strip). Only two of them are being used so far (oil pres. and coolant temp.). The left strip provides grounds (brown), ignition switched power (yellow), and dimmer controlled lighting (white).

Here's how they look installed.

And in the Van. With a big cup they block the left gauge. Eventually I'll put the voltage gauge there since it's the one I use the least.