ZUCA...BAD A$$ CUP HOLDERS DIY

Well, alright, Big G here in Sonoma, California with a modification for the Izuca backpack cart, making new cup holders much better than the ones that were provided with the unit. I appreciate Zuka providing the water bottle holders. However, I find them highly ineffective for the size of bottles I use. I lose that thing 3 or 4 times around. It's really annoying. Everything you'll need for your project. 10 inches of 3-inch Schedule 40 ABS, 7/16-inch wrench, Phillips screwdriver, blue Loctite, half-inch bit, 17/64, and a tiny one for pilot holes, 4-inch screws, 4 washers, and nyloc nuts for the quarter-inch screws. A drill, and some paint to make it pretty. First, we will be measuring and marking 5 inches. Fortunately, I have a bandsaw. I'll use that to cut the two sections. But since I have this sander, I'm going to go ahead and make the ends smooth. Since I have some sandpaper laying around, I'm going to go ahead— this is 100 grit— I'm going to go ahead and soften the edge here, make sure that any burrs or sharp edges are gone. On both of these pieces. Next, we're going to mark for this bolt that comes through. That's basically what holds your bottle in. It allows drainage as well. 1/2 inch up from the bottom edge, both sides. With the smallest bit I have, I'm going to drill 2 pilot holes. Then I'll use the 17/64 bit. Once one side is finished, I'll bring it to the edge of the table, make sure we're lined up perfectly down the middle, and finish that other side. Perfect. At this point, assembly of the bottom piece would be washer through both sides, another washer, and then the nyloc nut. Would go on there. It fits nice right down the middle. Let's, uh, before we assemble that, we will drill the holes for mounting. Next, we need to drill the mounting holes. 17/64 on one side, half inch on the other, so you can fit your screwdriver through there to tighten them up. First measurement off the bottom is 3/4, and then according to my cart, 2 9/16 inches up is the center of the other hole. As for the 3/4 of an inch for the first mounting hole above the bottom, is that if you use that dimension and when you mount it, you end up with about a half of an inch of clearance between the bottom of the cup holder and the wheel. That allows for any mud on the wheel not to have to scrape off onto this. And as far as the 5-inch height, it allows my regular water bottles more than 50% inside of here, and it also gives it a little bit of clearance here at the top. If it were taller, it might be harder to put the water bottle in the holder. All right, now that we've got our holes marked at 3/4 inch up off the bottom and another 2 9/16, we found the center. We're going to project that line up using a square so it's nice and straight, and then we're going to go back to our small pilot hole drill just to get them started. I like the pilot hole because when I start to use a bigger drill, the drill wanders and I'm not as accurate right on the center of the crosses. Now that those two are drilled, we're going to use our 17/64, open it up. And then just for— to help with alignment, I'm gonna move this back and forth, give it just a bit of a flop. Perfect. We'll sand those edges off in a bit. Next, we're going to drill all the way through and protrude the other side. Excellent. Now that we've got both sides penetrated, we're going to leave these. Those are what's going to go against the cart. We're going to open this side up with a half-inch drill so you have better access with your Phillips screwdriver. That's really all there is to it. Now we just need to assemble it, paint it, and attach it to the cart. Before I prep for assembly and painting, I'm going to use this sandpaper, kind of smooth any of these holes, make sure again that some of the burrs are, uh, if they're on there, are knocked down so they're not coming out. Just kind of again make sure all of this is cleaned up. Realistically, with both of these drilled, because I'm making two of them for my cart, um, and sanded, they could be ready to go. But just because I want to dress them up and paint them, make them look nice, I'm going to use some isopropyl alcohol and just kind of clean off surfaces wherever I want the paint to stick. Just pretty quick. I mean, it'll stick, but I've also used the sandpaper and scuffed it a little bit to give the surface just a little tooth to hold the paint. Anyway, boom, there you go. Next, I will assemble and get ready to start painting. All right, here we go. I'm recommending that when you put these together Make sure that the way they're going to sit on your cart. I like the, um, the Phillips side of the screw on the outside of my cart, so I'm going to push this through here. One washer, push it through eventually, and another washer and the nut. When I tighten this down The nyloc nut is going to provide what you need as far as lock washer, etc., so that'll be nice and clean. And then don't overtighten this. You don't want to make the tube out of round. Again, this is— it's, uh, it's basically just to hold it in. Right now it's snug. I'm not going to go any tighter than that. I'll do the same on the other side, but again, I'd like these to be facing in so that the larger head of the nut is on the inside and it will look better on the outside with the rounded Phillips head on the cart. We'll start with black just to give it a nice base. I'm going to paint everything including the hardware. If you're experienced with spray paint, cool, you know what's up. If you're not, don't try to paint the whole thing at one shot. It's going to take several coats. It's going to come out way better if you take your time and be patient. Right on. After a little bit of drying time, make sure things are pretty nice and dry, not still tacky. I'm going to use some 000 steel wool just to barely scuff the paint for the second coat of black. It's about all I'll do on the black, and then I'm gonna use a little red to make it fancy. Anyway, cool. Stay tuned. To match the colorway of my red Zooka backpack cart and the Squatch Lore 2 bag. I'm going to add some red to the top of the cup holders. Yep, looking really good. And for a final installation, use the screws that came with the original cup holders. I put a tiny bit of Loctite on each one, blue. Um, use this hole here to access the back screw and put the screws right back into the two holes that were provided for the originals. Go ahead and tighten all this up. Alignment-wise, again, I use the small, the rounded part of the Phillips head on the outside so that it looks cleaner aesthetically. Lock these down to very snug. Don't overtighten, you don't want to strip anything. There you go, my friends, brand new custom water bottle holders for my Zooka cart. Not only do they look amazing, but they work great too. I've been in action with this about 2 months and have never had one fall out during my round. I hope you get out and play today. Well, all right, I hope you enjoyed the video and I hope it was productive and helpful in case you want to make your own water bottle holders. It's well worth it. Drop a comment, Like, subscribe. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding this build. Have a good day.