Glovebox Cooler

Chilled Glovebox

Don’t you hate it when you put your Mars bar in the glovebox and it’s melted when you go to eat it? Personally no, I like it to make as much mess as possible but that doesn’t suit everyone. So, how about a chilled glovebox? You only need a smart fortwo 451 with 2 options. The glovebox and air conditioning.

Diverting The Flow

Pull off the heater vent on the glovebox side. Now it’s time to get destructive!

You need to drill/saw/dremel/melt a hole from the dash into the glovebox.

Anything you do will be hidden when you replace the vent so don’t be scared.

The important part is finding “something” that will act as a pipe to shuttle the cold air from the dashboard to the glovebox. If you don’t add a pipe, most of the cold air will be lost between the dash and the glovebox.

To be honest, I haven’t a clue what this thing was, maybe a piece of conduit, either way, it slipped in nicely. You can seal the outside of the tube if you want or if the piece isn’t particularly secure. You can see that you are slightly limited by height but not by length. An elongated hole would be better.

Place the heater vent back in place and you are ready

How To Cool The Glovebox

Turn the air conditioning on, put it on the lowest temperature setting and aim it out the dash vents only. If you look into the vent you can see directional fins that move with the front adjuster.

However, if you move that front adjuster all the way to 1 of the sides, the vent is closed.

Close all 4 vents in the dashboard. This gives the chilled air only 1 real way to escape. Into the glove box.

What Can I Use As A Transfer Tube?

I don’t know what crap you have in that drawer full of rubbish. If you get a spray can lid and cut the flat top off, you can squash the sides down to make it elongated. You can make a tube using a few wraps of paper if you really have nothing else. Of course, the ideal situation is that you have a 3D printer so you can knock up something perfect however, being as it’s only 2015, I think we are at least 10 years from 3D printers being common place in the home.

If you come up with something interesting and fairly easy to copy, send me a photo. The larger the transfer tube between the dash and glovebox, the better the cooling effect will be.

How Cool Will The Glovebox Get?

A good guess, about 16°C (60°F).

This isn’t cold enough to safely store your dairy products but it’ll chill drinks and stop chocolate melting.

Will This Really Work?

Of course! The AC is designed to chill the inside of your car on a hot day, it’ll have no issues chilling a tiny glovebox.

If the cabin is hot, you’ll be able to open a vent and still have some cooling in the glovebox if you turn up the fan speed. You need the amount of air being pushed to be greater than the vents can expel.

Is This Page Here To Pad The Website Out A Bit?

Oh look! A badger (runs away).