So, i just got my first truck which is a manual 88 f150 single cap xlt 4x4. Pretty nice for a first truck IMO. its got about 125k miles and im the third owner. Anywho... I did not like that there were no cup holder so one day I was at a junk yard and got a light bulb idea. Basically I took the rear pop out cup holder out of a 05-12 Acura RL (my pops has one) and put it in to my arm rest.
For me doing this was better idea than the factory options.
So I cut out the main part of the Acura rear arm rest. which is a metal box and the cup holder mechanism. left all the leather and the foam at the junk yard.
then disassembled my factory ford armrest. Cut a measured a box out the same dimensions as the cup holder set up from the front face . then measured back about 9 inches from the front and made a slit on the bottom face (the top fact has a sheet metal that goes from front to back), perpendicular to the whole arm rest.
I had to cut some tabs off and that will be showed in the pics.
the trim that came with the cup holder went on too. the trim has two clips on the top which clip on the the metal box but i trimmed the bottom of the trim to make it be level with the arm rest. unfortunately the clips on the bottom were choped off. so i put two screws on the sides through the plastic trim that go in to the metal box. Make sure the trim is pushed as much to the bottom as possible because otherwise it will pop off from the top.
It will be easier to understand once you see the pictures.
I will redo the trim in the future and trim the foam to make it not bugle out as much.


arm rest is upside down


top is the top of the arm rest where you see the gray, that is the metal



mock up


pretty centered


stuck out to much so i had to cut the brackets off on the right side in this pic.


cut along the red lines


cut above the arrows


this is after i cut the side brackets off


the squares cut off


all done

 

Neat idea.
How solid is it?

 

That's something I need to do for the rear seat bench!

Maybe embed one in the front middle seat bolster as well to have cup holders if the center front seat is also in use.

 

Looks like you did a great job, but.....
I would NEVER do anything that encouraged my wife to bring any of her extremely large "collection" of excessively large cups in my vehicle.

 

So... you put Honda parts in your Ford? Lost me. I have Ford and Chrysler parts in my Camaro. But foreign car parts make me cringe a bit. :lol:

Other than that, looks great. Do you have a head on view? Curious how you addressed the upholstery seam around the cup holders.

 

I have two Ford trucks.Both made in Canada.My Honda Accord was built here at home,out in Ohio.

 

Hmm.... now I need to reevaluate most of my life choices.

(I hope everyone understands my comments are meant to be light hearted and comical. Not insulting in any way.)

 

So how does it look where they come out of the seat? You missed that VERY important detail

 

very solid. I want to upload a video but its not letting me. I'm trying to make it shorter. It'll be up later.

 

Its all the pictures i had at the moment, I will post some later and hopefully can put a video up. This was a real quick post I did.

 

The cup holders out of Acura rl have a very solid design especially internal metal box support structure.
Acura tl has some but they look terrible.
Lexus sc coupes also have them and the design is slimmer than the rl but the actual cup holders are floppier IMO.

 

My girlfriend has her Starbucks cup obsession so fortunately enough these cup holders will hold any cup so there will be no spills haha.