HomeLink install on my Beetle

[hopkin]

I had been thinking about this little modification to my Beetle for a while and decided to go ahead with it. I took some pictures to share with Samba members who might be interested.

I want to keep the original look of the car as much as possible, so I was looking for a HomeLink device that was small and could be mounted discreetly.
I decided to find a unit I could mount in the top of my glovebox.

I looked on eBay and found just what I was looking for, a black HomeLink unit that mounts inside of a sunvisor. This unit is from a Ford.

I purchased the unit for $35 and the seller supplied some excellent instructions and a template for drilling holes for the three buttons and LED.
Before starting I tested the unit and programmed it to work with my garage door opener.

I removed the glovebox and drilled the holes per the template. The center of the holes are 2 1/2 inches from the front lip of the glovebox (bottom of picture):

Fortunately the gap on the plastic clips that fasten the faceplate of the HomeLink device to the back is exactly the same depth as the thickness of the ABS glovebox (right of picture).
I was able to snap the faceplate right into the holes that I drilled without any glue.

Because the control unit is now about 1/8 " further back from the faceplate, I had to put something in the gap in order to insure that the faceplate buttons reached the microswitches on the control unit.
In the instructions provided by the seller, he recommended using pencil erasers, which you can in the next photo. I had to do a little trial and error for size and, ended up using the white ones that you see in the unit:

I mounted the control unit on the top of the glovebox and tacked it with some weather stripping glue (only because that's what I had laying around):

I reinstalled the glovebox, using the strap to hold the control unit in place and hooked up the wires. It is wired to a switched circuit, the ignition must be on to open the garage door.
The foil 'tape' in the second picture is the antenna for the unit.

Finally, a look at the switches mounted on the top of my glovebox, total time to install: 1 1/2 hours.

[pave]

Very cool. I'm not there with my bug yet but I'm always trying to think of little gadgets out of modern cars to incorporate into my build. Nice work!
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Steve

[Mr.Duncan]

Very nice! i like it!
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(Owner) www.vintagecarleds.com

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Red 1966 Beetle Thread
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1966 Red Beetle

[CarlIseminger]

This is great. I always thought the HomeLink was hooked into the car's computer so I never thought about using it in any other car. Thank you
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1969 VW Beetle Convertible

[77kafer]

Nicely done, my version of home-link in the Harli.

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Supposed to be 77käfer, but there are no umlauts on an american keyboard

Overheard on 27 June 07, one lady to another when they saw my Harli in a parking lot at West Point, "maybe he found it on the clearance aisle at the Volkswagen dealer"

[Gonzo1970]

Ive seen some guys mod their motorcycles for a Single Button doing something along the same lines. Very good looking job!

-Gonz
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Sometimes the lights all shining on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it's been