Vellfire armrest console box not sliding 2009

[Kona Hyun]

Good evening all,

Thank you for accepting me as a member.

My Vellifre 2009 2.4 AWD has a center console like the attached picture. The console box lid decided not to slide forward to open. I used quite a bit of force but to no avail. 

Has anyone had a similar situation and how was it solved?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

 

[Rojie]

7 minutes ago, Kona Hyun said:

Good evening all,

Thank you for accepting me as a member.

My Vellifre 2009 2.4 AWD has a center console like the attached picture. The console box lid decided not to slide forward to open. I used quite a bit of force but to no avail. 

Has anyone had a similar situation and how was it solved?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

It looks like it is open to me !

 

Is this unit between the front seats or the middle ones ?

 

Do you mean it won't slide rearwards ?

[Kona Hyun]

Hi Rojie,

Thanks for asking.

It is between the front seats.

It is in closed position. The top lid covering the box should slide forward to open/ uncover the box beneath. It stuck and won't move.

[R4v3n]

Could you do a video ?

[Rojie]

12 hours ago, Kona Hyun said:

Hi Rojie,

Thanks for asking.

It is between the front seats.

It is in closed position. The top lid covering the box should slide forward to open/ uncover the box beneath. It stuck and won't move.

 

I have an earlier model, so my input is a guess, and based on my unit.

 

The lid appears to be as far forward as it can go.

The lower instrument binnacle is preventing it moving any further forward.

On mine, albeit an earlier model, there are small 'buttons' to push downward to release the lid.

 

Perhaps a Gen 2 owner can comment, and solve the mystery.

[Chris.ac]

I do not understand the question - the box is open as it is slid forward towards the front console, do you mean you want to slide it closed to cover the rear storage?

 

Open the cupholder compartment and inside there is a handle on the rear edge that unlocks the sliding portion

[Chris.ac]

wait, that picture is NOT your vehicle and your box is currently closed and will not slide forward? is that it? in this case, is there something jamming it from the lower storage position?

 

[owsu]

Hey @Kona Hyun I'm in the same situation as you, basically the mechanism inside is broken (apparently this can happen if it slid close with too much force); here's how to take the top part of the box off (I'll try and take some pictures as I attempt to fix the mechanism tonight):

 

1/ You will need to take the sides and the front plastic covers off. They are held on with double sided sticky take *and* plastic tabs; be careful not to break them off like I did.

 

2/ When the top lid is in the closed position, it's held on to the rails with two pins at the front. These have little tabs that you can push in on both sides with your fingers to open. *SLIDE BACKWARDS*

 

3/ Keep pushing the tabs in to open the latch and *slide backwards* the top tray, it will come free off the rails this way. If you slide forwards the mechanism will lock on similar pins but at the back of the enclosure with aren't accessible.

 

The top tray is held together by screws from the bottom, you will need to disassemble this way to get access to the mechanism to fix it.

[Kona Hyun]

Thanks, Owsu, for the detailed explanation and your effort to fix it.

Yes, it must have been forcefully closed. There was a time when friends were in the middle seats and one of them did close the tray. This must be the cause of it.

I will try fixing it as you have shown. Maybe removing the seats may help taking out the side covers.

[Kona Hyun]

Hi Chris,

No, there is nothing jamming in the tray. I peeped from the back with a torchlight. The box is not full.

As Owsu said, it must be a jam in the sliding mechanism.

[owsu]

So, I have finally managed to defeat my laziness long enough to post a follow up.

 

# Disassembly

 

1. These screws hold a plate that cover the front tray screws. I would probably remove them first.

2. Front tray screws.

3. Rear tray screws - its not obvious in my photo but you should already have access to them.

4. These hold the handle in place; depending on what's broken you may not need to remove these. I did.

 

 

 

Interestingly these are normal Phillips screws not JIS.

 

# Handle Mechanism

 

1. You'll need to remove screws (4) to be able to remove the handle. It pulls on two arms that clip in via ball joints - so hold these one at a time as you pull the handle mechanism off.

 

It looks like life's filth likes to gather here. I cleaned this up reassembling and applied some general purpose grease to all sliding parts.

 

2. Take the handle mechanism apart from the bottom. As you can see, my one has previously broken before and someone tried to fix it.

 

The arm with electrical tape fits into the bottom part of the mechanism and moves to pull the ball-joint arms _in_ to open the tray locks.

 

 

[owsu]

So judging by what broke I think the fragile point is not sliding the tray hard but maybe putting too much force to actuate the handle. I tried to fix it a few times, the first I used some epoxy to make a bit of a bulky "arm" and then file it down to size.

This is too tall and too wide in this picture. In the end the epoxy didn't set and it broke - it looks like pulling too hard on the handle puts a lot of stress into the mechanism and might be what causes it to fail.

 

In the end I replaced the previous "fix" bolt with a slightly thicker one that I screwed all the way in - so that it would fit this little silicone cap (to avoid damaging the inner handle mechanism where it slides. I then greased it up with multipurpose grease.

 

So far it seems to work - I put just the handle back on the tray to test. In the future if I find the handle actuation starting to feel a bit vague I will open this up again before it breaks.

 

This is the height I had it working at

 

I think this can be improved by using an end cap with a bit of a wider profile, but this is what I had on hand.

[Kona Hyun]

Thanks, OWSU for defeating your laziness and all the pictures and detailed explanations. Me too in the lazy mode with this cold weather.

Mine did not need to lift the handle to slide forward to open. I did not even know the handle was there till this happened. Maybe the actuation mechanism is already broken. I just pushed a bit to slide open and close, and it stayed there. But now it refuses to open even with a much harder push. I am thinking of removing the seats  before tackling this. 

Thank you for the reply.

[Kona Hyun]

#OWSU,

I finally got around to sort this out today.

I managed to remove the seats but it was not needed to fix this problem.

I followed what you have shown and got to the problem. It must have been fixed by the previous owner. The top plastic tray was not even screwed to the metal frame. It just came off after taking off the wood colour surround and the front plastic.

In my case, the bolt was a little too short and it was out of the 'slot' it was supposed to be in and stuck. That's why it jammed the mechanism. I changed the bolt to a longer one and cut it to the measurement you have shown. Then I covered it with epoxy steel to make it smooth. Now it is working perfectly.

Thank you very much OWSU.