How do you repair the glove box lock on a 1997 Jetta?

Answer 1

My glove box latch handle fell off about a month ago. The latching pins had loosened and let the handle fall out. I couldn't figure out how to push them back into place without replacing the whole glove box door. And after reading the FYI, I knew I didnt want to do that.

Today I just fixed it. Took an hour and cost me $2.00 Canadian dollars...

The problem is that the factory pins are too short to push in when the handle is in place. If they were a bunch longer you could push them in through the spaces between the latch and the glove box door.

I bought 2 feet of 1/8" steel rod stock (from Home Depot). The original pins are metric and are smaller diameter, so you need to drillout the holes in the handle to 1/8" to take the new pins.

You don't need to drill the pin seats in the glove box door (not that I think its possible anyway); the 1/8" stock is just slightly bigger and can be pushed in with a bit of force (twisting them helps). A tight fit here is really good anyway, since the metric pins came loose by themselves in the first place. I will let you know if it breaks at -40 this winter....

http://is.rely.net2-1060-1120...g.jpg

In this pic you can see the smaller pins in the middle and the new pins to the left. I first pushed the original pin in the hole and marked the depth with some tape to match. You can just see the tape mark on the original pin. If you look at the drill bit, you will see some wire insulation I put over it so that the new holes would only be drilled as deep as the old ones.

http://is.rely.net2-1060-1120...g.jpg

Here you can see the point to all this. The pins are now long enough to push in from the hole between the handle and the glove box door. You need to insert the pins from the center space where the handle goes, and push the pins outward to positions shown.

http://is.rely.net2-1060-1121...g.jpg

This picture almost shows the pin end in the slot. I used a pen knife blade to engage the pins. They only go in a few mm. It also helps to move the handle open and closed slightly while pushing the pin.

Oh by the way, since this was experiemental (on may car anyway, I forgot to measure the pins before I put it together. But you can see from the picture what the ball park is. Dont forget that once its together, it ain't coming apart, so test fit everything before installing.

Good luck and have fun...