10am. (UK)... Saturday 29th.....

[Southernboy]

Be here tomorrow morning.....

[David]

ZERO!!!!

????!!


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[Southernboy]

.........
here it is.... I removed my driver seat so that I could take the pics and be able to have a "total" exposure of the fitted item... The brackets and cupholder are "unfinished"...I simply used some 800 grit paper to clean up a bit...
....comments will be welcomed....and any orders too....

First off... the cupholder in it's folded away position under the armrest....


Next...the armrest in it's "seated" position....




The armrest in it's "raised" position....


The cupholder in use for a can of beer... and then with a "tapered" tumbler...




A view from above....

[Southernboy]

.......... and finally...with the seat back in... PS. NO...You don't need to remove the seat to fit this !!

[Southernboy]

..... and finally final....I am now having a cuppa and then I'll do the cruise control interface install... so I can take my armrest for a test drive...

[leach62]

That looks really good, and what a clever way of having a cupholder, are you able to complete the top of the armrest in different colours ? What do you think the unit cost will come in at ? Well done and good effort.

Regards Jim

[Southernboy]

You can have any colour you want...as long as it's Black...or Red, Beige.... Estoril Blue is not available as is Tanin Red...I can get a very close Tanin Red, but it will need some "after work" done with the stuff available off eBay, generally used to do repair work on leather.....
Price complete including postage to UK / EU / Israel / USA and Oz is £.105.00. You can have black or silver anodised.... or any other anodised colour you may prefer...but fancy colours like red, purple etc etc....will be more expensive.

[Del]

Looks like tough, good quality materials

[Southernboy]

All 6mm aluminium....and M6 dome head allen drive screws. The armrest upholstered part was also a 1st attempt at a new finish...as you can see, the black trim on the one in my pics isn't perfect....that has been sorted now, and it'll be a very neat smooth all round trim. Obviously, if you have the brackets in black, you will get everything else in black..ie. screws, cupholder etc etc...or you can still choose to contrast the finish with the SS screws on black or black screws on the silver....

[Southernboy]

..... and just to say, what you see is what it'll be like...except the metal parts will be bead blasted and anodised.... so not a lot of imagination required....
This is what bead blasting looks like...the image on the right is blasted. It provides a very fine "texture" which is retained after anodising....

[Captain]

Looks great Barry, very functional and neat.

[Southernboy]

Thanks Hilton... and a huge improvement in comfort without losing the storage access below....

[Southernboy]

.... Right, to keep you all in the picture.... I have ordered parts for 10 of these.... so far 4 have been sold already... Parts take aprox 14 days from day of ordering to having them ready for posting. This includes the upholstery, anodising etc etc...
Although it isn't immediately obvious, there are several Nylon parts. These provide the smooth swivel hinge movements to both the cupholder and the armrest. They are all imported components, and aren't cheap. They are hard nylon and are manufactured to high specs. eg. if a washer or spacer is designated 2.5mm thick, it is precisely that. This is important in the construction of this system as tolerances are less than 0.1mm. Once assembled, there is absolutely no "wiggle" of hinges or and "floppiness" to the swivel mechanism of the cupholder. They all hinge smoothly and solidly. The entire install will take aproximately 15 minutes. The cupholder comes pre-installed on the armrest as do the hinges and the 2 stubby sests which the armrest sits on in it's normal operating position. The fitting of the fixing points at the console OEM rear ends (at the very bottom of the bracket in the pics where you can see the SS dome nut) is possibly the most "difficult" of the process. But even this aspect will come pre-prepared to make installation impossible to mess up. The balance of fitting is essentially in joining the left and right brackets together by means of the "cross bar" which rests on the console top face just in front of the bank of swithches etc... and the fitting of the 2 bolts and their nylon washers / spacers which also act as the hinges.
Each armrest / bracket kit will come with detailed written and photographic instructions to guide you easily through the installation.
Compared to the OEM plastic cupholder set-up, this armrest is about 5mm higher at the leather upholstered surface, and aprox 20mm wider at the side which is closes to the driver. This makes it more practical and comfortable for the driver to rest his elbow than previously, whilst being at a height which doesn't give a feeling that the armrest is a bit "out of reach" in the normal seated position.
Obviously for shorter and taller people this will vary a tad. The taller guys will have their seats lowered as much as possible and the opposite for the vertically challenged... This will result in the armrest height changing relative to the seat height....obviously, you will need to adjust your seat to find the optimum for yourseves...
Please PM me any questions / concerns etc you might come up with so I can cover any queries directly. If it is a possible common concern, I can post the reply here for everyone else that may have a similar query.
Thanks for all the support and patience whilst I have been chasing my tail getting parts etc etc to do this project, and I hope you guys will get the moths out your wallets and start ordering....

[Fender2004]

Looks very well made can I ask what is the internal diameter of the cup holder?

[Southernboy]

Large enough for a beer can.... I think it's about 68mm.

[sirius-c]

Simple like you said Barry but bloody ingenious, don't know what we'd do without you. Sign me up.....all black for me

PS: Wont the cross bar scratch the console surface?

PPS: Anyone want to buy 1 x BMW OEM cup holder (still sealed up) and 1 x customs leather arm rest (never used, made by Barry industries Ltd) ?

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[Southernboy]

Hi Stephen...if you have a close look at the pics I posted, you will see the cross bar is perfectly smooth aluminium round bar... Once the armrest is fitted, it doesn't move at all...so, no it won't sctratch the console surface.

[sirius-c]

Hi Stephen...if you have a close look at the pics I posted, you will see the cross bar is perfectly smooth aluminium round bar... Once the armrest is fitted, it doesn't move at all...so, no it won't sctratch the console surface.

Aha


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[Southernboy]

........ somehow some people have missed this post.... I can only imagine it's because they've been prepping their cars for the "top down season"....

[Mint]

You can have any colour you want...as long as it's Black...or Red, Beige...

No mention of White there Barry - any chance for me. As far as I know I'm the only one with white interior leather

[Southernboy]

PM sent Mint...

[Mint]

PM replied...

[bertiejaffa]

on a slightly different note.... I have just seen the mods you have made to the 2 blanks on the back switch console. When I start on my new zed in the summer I am looking to put a USB cable in that attaches to the back of my stereo, I am also wondering about the other buttons... whats the red LED for?

[Southernboy]

...thats the alarm imobiliser / alarm led. ...

[resunoiz]

looks good
what about avoiding scratches on the plastic trunk uppering the armrest?

[Southernboy]

The aluminium bar is super smooth, and also it's round, and finally it doesn't move once the brackets are fitted and tightened... so no chance of scratching at all...