glovebox spring

I'm glad you posted that old photo. I looked in my glove compartment to find the "U" shaped clamp next to my missing spring was loose. And the spring has not been there since I bought the car 2 years ago. I guess the purpose of the spring is to prevent the compartment door from flopping down at the speed of gravity.
Does anyone have an extra spring? BTW, I do not need to know the length,wire diameter,or spring rate. I just don't want that 10 lb compartment door to crash down on a passenger and crush their toes... Thanks!!
 
Ignore the rust.

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yes, that's where I hooked it too. Finally something intuitive about the E9.

Drew, you cannot make the spring out of Kona wood!
 
yes, that's where I hooked it too. Finally something intuitive about the E9.

Drew, you cannot make the spring out of Kona wood!
Correct! Kona wood is from the petrified forests in Siberia. It can only be harvested for 5 days during the thaw in early August.
Hawaiian KOA wood,on the other hand, is readily available in Maui, but you have to quarantine for 2 weeks before you can buy some.
Now to help my compartment door from falling off,please find me a regular BMW spring that has not had a salt bubble bath.
Thanks!!
 
Love this thread and, as usual, it's given me the idea for another small winter shopping/hunting project. I've been missing my glovebox spring for several years after I removed the glovebox to mount my Megasquirt ECU in the area above the glovebox. I must have misplaced this spring in the reassembly. So is there a source to buy a new spring or a facisimile of it based on Markos' measurements?
 
Hi, if there will be an interest I can talk to a craftman where I was ordering spring in the past for E30 convertible hinge's flaps...

They can be made even of stainless wire if you like. :cool:

I would than take one for me as well.

Makes on sense to order only two or three of course.
 
If you have one of those things that were used to weigh letters, you can hook it to the spring, displace it by a given length and calculate the spring constant. This will be needed if aftermarket is considered.

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Attention all springless glovebox forum members! I think I have found the spring we are all trying to obtain. I placed an order with my local BMW dealer and the spring is coming from Germany in a week or so. Please just use caution when opening your glove box until further notice. There is no need to place a bulk order until I actually get the spring and see if it works in my glovebox. Hint-what I ordered is an available part for another BMW.
To be continued,
Drew
 
Keshav is correct. I found the spring by doing a Google search and ended up at the CS forum in Germany. They all had the same discussion in 2019. I thought I was reading our forum in an alternate universe like what happed to the Enterprise in the episode,"Mirror-Mirror".
The NLA spring part # is 51161805586. They had a member find the spring with a link to bmw-interieur.com



They call the spring a feather. Looks like the feather was used in the Bavaria glovebox also.

But the spring part # there is 21521101739. Buy this spring and pay $30 shipping for a $5 spring. Nope!
Another google search found the other # is for the release lever spring on a 2002 clutch. And that is available for about $13.00
You can buy that spring at Maximillian or ECS tuning,or the local BMW dealer.
We'll all know if it works when I get the one ordered. BTW, the person on the CS German forum said it worked on his glovebox.
 
Here's the BMW E30 gas pedal return spring - very similar - has less turns and different ending (This is not a problem). I'm not sure about the diameter for today.

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I got the BMW spring from the dealer in about 20 days. They had to get it from Germany. The Part # is 21-52-1-101-739. The list price is $14.36. This is the spring the forum members in Germany found to replace the NLA original part. The spring is used on a 2002 clutch return lever. The hooks are 90 degrees from each other. The pics show the dimensions in inches and mm. Installing the spring using a vice-grip grabbing the long end is quite easy. When you push the button to open the door,it just barely opens due to the spring tension. What good is that unless you keep all of your Heyco tools in there since your trunk toolbox is cracked because you kept all of your tools in there?
My glove box just has my driving gloves and papers in it so it's pretty empty. I took the spring off the scissors hinge and stretched it a little. Now the door opens slightly slower than when there was no spring at all, and there is a spring "boing" noise that will tell the Pebble Beach judges that my glovebox door is complete.
If your glove box is full of stuff and quite heavy, buy the spring. Otherwise, you never knew it was missing and you really don't need it.

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Can you tell me what is the maximum length spring is stretched to having the glove box fully open?
Is the spring limiting the further movement down?
 
The spring is stretched 13 mm when the door is fully opened. The spring allows the door to open fully after I stretched some of the tension out of it.
The spring barely opened the door when new and you have to pull the door down to be fully opened. The spring did not have enough tension to lift the door once the door was opened.
 
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