How To: Side Mirror repair - is yours floppy? (now with pictures)
Is yours floppy?
There's no stifness left in it anymore?
Well don't despair, your mirror can be fixed - try this "Mechanical Viagra" treatment before buying a replacement?
The cost of repair is a couple of quid - and a few hours of your time!
Undeneath the (floppy)mirror, is a plastic panel that I eased out using a blade.
https://thumb.ibb.co/dkgmFb/01.jpg
You can see the wiring passing through a hollow metal (pivot) tube.
The appropriate tension to the mirror is applied by a sequence of washers that when compressed by the star lug nut, provides the mirror with the capability to hinge when subjected to slight impact (ouch!)yet not flop about when driving on uneven roads. (see later photo showing the shape and sequence of the washers).
It's not a circlip (C profile) but a star lug that has a shoulder (O profile)
There doesn't seem to be much info on this repair on the internet - I have heard that the job can be done in situ? Well taking the wiring into cosideration, that would be very difficult in my opinion.
First I took my mirror body off the car. i'm not going to explain the first part of this process i.e. taking the door card off,which you need to do to get access to the 3 screws securing the mirror to the door ... there's plenty of info out there on how to do that.
When removing the mirror body,one tip is to tie some string around the wires going from the harness inside the door to the mirror motor contained in the mirror body. This will enable the wires to be easily pulled back through the door when the mirror body is re attached to the door after the repair.
https://thumb.ibb.co/grZj1G/05.jpg
The loom to the mirror is uncoupled within the recesses of the door. Quite clearly mine did not have the Male connector, the pins were just pushed into the female socket.
https://thumb.ibb.co/n86Lab/04.jpg
Next heat the mirror glass gently with a heat gun so that it can be removed from the motor plate. I used plastic coffee stirrers to ease the sticky pad that attaches it to the backing plate. They will snap, they are meant to, so you have a fighting chance of removing the glass in one piece so get a load of them when you have a coffee -Once loosened, I followed this up using a sharp bladed knife - the ones that have a long handle containing the blade and you snap off pieces of the blade as the edge losses it's sharpness - you can expose a long length of blade to get it between the mirror and the plate to ease it off.
Here's a picture of the glass removed alongside the backing plate.
https://thumb.ibb.co/kd7nMG/P9131777.jpg
Here's the inside of the housing - very dusty with loads of Dubai sand in there! The plate is a affixed to the motor via a central screw that screws into the white flange
https://thumb.ibb.co/fQLfab/03b.jpg
The motor can be removed, by unscrewing the 3 phillips screws. Interesting enough there are 5 plastic fixing lugs. the D only uses 3 of them. The motor has the following numbers stamped on it 102060 in one place, and 102063-2 in another location of the motor. I wonder if this is a generic motor used in other applications?
https://thumb.ibb.co/cJDGFb/number.jpg
Because my loom didn't have the conventional plug on the end, that meant that I could remove the wires that run through the centre of the pivot tube - the tube that locates the swiveling mirror to the mirror housing.
At least because my loom didn't have the plug that fits to the loom inside the door, I could withdraw the wires from the the pivot tube, which would help when I press fitted the star lug.
Why was my mirror so floppy?The problem was that the star lug shown on the left had snapped.
https://thumb.ibb.co/dLPHMG/06.jpg
The sequence of washers has to go on the pivot post in a particular order.
- I've (crudely) show the shape of the washers and the order/orientation, which, when compressed provides the appropriate tension.
I sourced a replacement Star lug ( a pack of 10) from a teddy bear materials supplier.
The internal diameter was 10 mm but I couldn't source one with the correct diameter which is 20 mm I think! I even contacted the manufacturers - no dice!
https://thumb.ibb.co/bZvP1G/07.jpg
Initially I got a socket that fitted over the star lug and tried tapping on the (drift) socket - but no joy.
That washer has some tension in it!!!!
So I came up with the idea of using a G clamp and pressing it on. I'd bought this one to clamp down the roof box when I bolted it down. The wide mouth of the clamp enabled me to hold it between my legs - otherwise a second pair of hands would probably be required.
https://thumb.ibb.co/mmcF8w/08.jpg
So using a socket on the star lug,I also used a washer in the body housing to protect it from the clamp jaws & spread the pressure I was about to exert using the clamp.
But ......still no joy as I couldn't centre the star lug on the pivot post. It kept wandering on the post .....
Sooooooo I cut the top off a biro pen top - slightly conical in shape, inserted that in the pivot post and placed the star lug over that.
https://thumb.ibb.co/cRTBgG/09.jpg
Compressing the G clamp, on the socket, that sat on the star lug, whilst being centred using a sawn off pen top, I heard a click!!
S4it I thought something has snapped! - It had ..it was the sound of the star lug snapping into place - ....... and job's a good un.
https://thumb.ibb.co/hZQ2ow/11.jpg
Having managed to get the mirror glass out in one piece, I need to fit that back. However, as my hobby is stained glass I may try cutting down a convex mirror blank to fit back in.- but that's another day!!
