For a while now, I've been lamenting that fact that my sweet Ghia doesn't have a cigarette lighter. There is an ashtray, but no lighter. Being a non-smoker, the lack of a lighter isn't a big deal, but I would love to be able to charge some devices while driving. For about 10 bucks, I found a decent power adapter / USB charger combo on Amazon.... then I installed the adapter.

Drill A Hole

Hey looky! There is the adapter, a piece of 2"x2" lumber with a hole in it, a drill with a 1" paddle bit, and my hella sweet buck knife.

The Adapter itself is about 7/8" diameter, but the black frame that the adapter sits in is 1". The hole was drilled a little lower than center so that there would be room to accommodate the lid when it is opened.

Trim The Bracket

A bit of zing zing with the circular saw made a nice trapezoid.

At this point, I really should have used a sander to round the edges. Oh well.

Screw It Into Place

In order to screw the bracket into place, it was necessary to remove my security system, AKA a busted up cassette player.

Installed And Done

Once the bracket was in, I needed to shave a bit of plastic off of the black frame that holds the adapters lid, and the adapter was pressed snugly into the bracket and wired directly to the power. Then the security system was re-installed.

Devilishly Pleasant Weather

It was a wonderful day for working on a car.

The Security System: It is my opinion that the most common reason for breaking into a car is to steal the stereo. I don't have a stereo, I have an amp that I plug a music player into, but I still don't want anyone breaking into my car. As a deterrent, I have a busted, crappy, worthless cassette player in plain sight so that anyone looking into my car will see nothing worth stealing. However, the cassette in the player is the Little Mermaid Soundtrack and that is worth something because it has some jams!