I must admit - installing the passenger-side cup holder was quite a bonding experience for me and my car. It took me over 6 hours in the span of two days to get the damn thing in, cursing, kicking and screaming the whole way. But afterwards, the feeling of accomplishment and the sense of having installed something myself in my car, drove me to a frenzy. What can I do next?? What? What??
I troved the DIY forums on NewTiburon.com and planned on tackling a bunch of them myself, but then I had an idea of my own, one I'd been kicking around for a few months - buy a console switch, take my garage door opener, and install it in place of one of the dead switches on my console. The only problem was I didn't feel like having to order a switch, and all of them came with symbols on the front (TCS, hands free, etc).
The solution I came up with was simple - use a switch I already have. I've always thought it kind of pointless to be able to control whether the lights come on or not when a door opens (in any car), so I decided to make that switch my garage door opener - and it already says Door! Perfect! So here's how I did it. (NOTE: These pics wre taken post-mod)
Tools Needed
* Small flathead screwdriver
* Large and small phillips screwdriver
* Wire clippers
* Knife or Dremel tool
* Soldering iron (maybe)
* Electrical tape (maybe)
* Zip Ties from Radio Shack (see pic at end)
* Garage door opener
I can take you part of the way...
We need to start by removing the cover plate for the lights. You'll need a small flathead screwdriver to jam up there and pry it loose - I find working from the back as shown above is easiest
The next step is to take out the four (4) screws holding the console in place, circled in red
Okay, now we can remove the whole assembly and detach the two (2) connectors. The one on the left powers the lights, and the one on the right (I assume) controls the sunroof.
So here we have it, but we don't need all of it, so take out the nine (9) screws holding down the lights and buttons. The screw I circled in green is missing for me because my door opener circuit board goes over it so I can't screw it back in
Now that we have just the component we need, it's time to start working on the switch. These things weren't assembled to come back out easily, I'll tell you that much. First take a knife or Dremel tool and remove the little black plastic bit you see missing from the center switch
Now it's time to clip the connectors powering the lights from the switch. Just take a pair of wire clippers and snip snip. Now what you do here is up to you: I found you can just bend the connectors under the bottom post and they'll rest against it with no problem. But if you're anal or just like to be safe, you can solder em to it too. You have now lost control of your door lights, they will be on no matter what
Aiighty here's the next tricky part, getting the switch out of its clips. You'll need the same small flathead you used to get the light cover plate off. Use it to pop one clip, and then use it to pop the other while you're pulling up and away from the first clip to prevent it from popping back on. It may take a couple of tries, like I said it's tricky
See this? This is as far as the switch assembly comes out. The next step is to seperate the cover by undoing the three clips in red
After that these are the three peices you will have.
It's all you now
Where you go from here is going to be up to you and your garage door opener. I had a small and simple Craftsman model and SW3 was the button that controlled my door. The battery didn't come connected to the circuit board, in fact I had to solder the positive post onto the board because electrical-taping it to the board wouldn't result in a sure connection. Even after that the battery hung at an odd angle and I had to bend and twist both posts to allow the battery to rest on the board and be held solidly enough that I wouldn't need tape.
Finally there was the issue of connecting the circuit board to the button assembly. Luckily I was able to position the board over the button with only minor hacking to the casing of the button assembly. I originally used duct tape over electrical tape (ghetto yea!!) but the heat from sitting in the sun made the tape lose grip. So I decided to just hot glue the damn thing, which worked splendidly actually, haha.
So there it is, best of luck to you at making your own garage door opener!
Update: The Next Day
So I went to open my garage door today after I got home from work and I push the switch and POP goes the circuit board. The same issue that kept me from using tape (heat) had melted down the glue enough to make it loose. Bah. So my next resort was to use zip ties. There was no room to drill holes big enough to get zip ties through, so I ended up screwing them down like so
I screwed down the zip tie real tight first and then wedged the circuit board underneath with a screwdriver to lift up the zip tie in places. The added benefit is now the battery rests against one of the screws to take out the door lights which secures it even better... until I have to replace the door light ;) You can find these zip ties at Radio Shack.
