cup holder clip latch repair

[Jonny]

Got tired of the cup holder sticking out an inch because of the broken clip. Fixed it but very fiddly getting it right. Junk yard clips are mostly broken too. This is what I did, but please post if you have a better solution.

First, find the disassemble dash thread by timsrv.
https://www.toyotavantech.com/forum/...sassemble+dash

These are the parts comprising the clip...

DSCN4652.jpg

The part which breaks is this one... picture is post "repair". Where the tiny wire now is there was a very flimsy piece of plastic in the original part which breaks pretty easily. Really a disappointing bit of design work in my opinion. Almost as poor as the craftsmanship of the repair!

DSCN4653.jpg

DSCN4654.jpg

This is what I ended up doing and why.
I used a piece of very thin springy wire. It has to be thin and springy to catch on the tiny latch of the cup tray itself. I used a single strand of wire from an 1/8" 1 x 19 stainless steel cable.
The wire needs to be bent to have the arc in it like in the pic, the reason being that when the cup holder is pushed all the way in, the slot which the clip rides in presses the wire up to close over the tray latch. When released, the clip moves out and the wire becomes unconstrained, allowing the tray to come out.
Using a red hot paper clip I melted 2 holes for the legs of my bent spring wire, then used a soldering iron to melt the plastic around the legs to hold them in place. This method maintained the temper/springiness of the metal. Trim off any errant plastic with a razor blade.
Reassemble the clip and test your work with the cup holder tray before you put everything back in the dash.
It was a frustrating job and needed several iterations, but the cup holder does now work.
I found that after installing it, I had to dig out the cup tray hook with a small chisel to make the hook a tad deeper in order to catch the wire every time.

As I said - please post if you have a better way. This method is something I'd only wish on people I didn't like very much.