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© 2000 Brian F. Schreurs
Even we have a disclaimer.

We decided the Paradise Garage 1985 Jaguar XJ-S was gonna have change holders instead of ashtrays. By some quirk of fate, those little 35mm film cans fit perfectly in the holes left behind by the ashtrays. To keep them from rattling around and to prevent poorly-deposited change from falling into the console, we devised a little brace/shield thingy out of sheet aluminum. And that's all the parts needed to build custom change holders for the XJ-S.

Cut the film cans down about this far.

The easy way out is really easy; hardly even worth writing up. Take six 35mm film cans and whack half an inch off the top of each. Remove ashtrays from Jaguar. Jam three cans in each side. Pat yourself on the back. Drive Jaguar to doctor for arm strain.

The rest of us are gonna want the brace/shield thingy. It looks better, especially if your fabrication skills are superior to ours (not unlikely), and it keeps change from disappearing into the console. Here's how to make it.

Take one of the ashtrays and place it upside down on a piece of construction paper. Hold it steady and trace the ashtray top on the paper. Then do what you will with the ashtray -- it's not needed anymore. Ever.

Identify the center of the rectangle on the paper. Measure both the length and the width to determine the exact center; there's not a lot of room for leeway. Note that it's not actually a perfect rectangle; one end is slightly wider than the other.

The drilled and Dremelled brace/shield thingy.

Set a compass to the radius of the bottom of a film can. Draw a circle with the compass at that radius, using the center of the rectangle as the center of the circle. That will be the second of three holes for the film cans. The first and third should be lined up on the same axis as the center hole, separated from the center hole by perhaps a quarter inch or so. As thin as you think you can fabricate.

Now carefully cut out the holes, then cut out the rectangle.

Get out your sheet aluminum (you do keep sheet aluminum lying around, don't you?) and transfer the pattern to the aluminum. We found a felt-tip pen worked if given a chance to dry afterward. With the circles, the diameter isn't a critical dimension to transfer; what matters is the center of each circle. The reason is that you can't adjust the size of the hole cutter anyway.

The change holder next to the ashtray. Which would you rather have?

Use a punch to put a little ding at the exact center of the three circles. This gives the hole cutter's bit something to start on, preventing it from skittering across the metal.

Get out the hole cutter. We used a 1-1/8" cutter but found it to be a touch too small. Perhaps a 1-1/4" cutter would be a better choice. Rather than spending more money on another bit, we used a Dremel to widen the holes. This resulted in an extremely tight fit; using a bigger cutter might allow the cans to flop around, or the shield to slip. Whichever you go with, cut the holes. Don't worry if they're not perfect -- they can be cleaned up later.

Once all three holes are in, cut out the rectangle. We used a Dremel cutoff wheel but there are lots of different ways to do this. Whatever method you employ, you'll probably need to...

Dress the part. All that cutting likely has left a couple ragged edges and some flashing. We used a grinder on a Dremel to cut here and prep there. We also used it to widen out the holes far enough for the film cans to just barely fit through. Our plan is for a zero-rattle installation.

Once the shield is dressed to your specs and sized for the three film cans, jam the cans into it and plunk it in the car! Remember the shield is not a perfect rectangle so it'll fall into place one direction, or require serious bending to get it to fit in the other direction. If you can't get yours to fit, try turning it around. If it still won't fit, well, you suck worse than us.

Now that you're a badass fabricator, go do the other one!

Quite a tidy installation. If our fabrication skills were a little better, one could imagine the change holder appearing factory and the ashtray looking out of place!

Life is so much better now. Instead of a pair of ugly ash trays that will never get used, we have six cool change cans ready for any coinage emergency. Our pockets are light, our spirits free, our tolls paid. Passengers marvel at our craftiness. And we have improved on the perfection of the XJ-S. Yeah baby, yeah.