So, having suffered the Ford center console armrest flaw and spending $41 to replace the cracked fiberglass bracket I'm curious of ideas for reinforcing or adding structural support to the bracket.

I initially thought about just using my broken bracket as a template to have a metal bracket fabbed, but I lack the ability to do such and there's not many metal fabbers here. I skimmed some exploder forums and the general suggestion is a tennis ball, but I don't like the idea of small ball + moving vehicle...... that = ball under gas or break pedal, possibly clutch in my case.

So anyone have ideas? I've been thinking about maybe 1-1.5 inch PVC pipe and creating a support that can be mounted at the front of the armrest, placed about where the latch for the console lid is.

 

slightly confused...