FRAMING JOHN DELOREAN - ON VOD www.framingjohndeloreanfilm.com
Page 1 of 2 1 2 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 29

Thread: Side Mirror Assembly/mirror glass replacement

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1
    Member Maritime-elf's Avatar
    Join Date:  Nov 2017

    Location:  Clewiston, FL

    Posts:    93

    My VIN:    3349

    Club(s):   (SCDC) (DCUK)

    Side Mirror Assembly/mirror glass replacement

    image.jpgHappy New Years everyone.

    Over the holiday I was replacing the glass on my side mirrors. I removed the old glass and then removed the part which holds the mirror glass. I was surprised to find I was missing one of the little reddish/orange pieces which either pushes the mirror up and down, and/or left and right. I called DMC Houston and they told me the reddish/orange part does not exist and I need to replace my entire mirror assembly. So my question is, rather then replace the entire assembly does any know where I can find the reddish/orange part which lives behind the mirror glass?

    image.jpg
    Last edited by Maritime-elf; 12-29-2017 at 10:26 PM.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Gregadeth's Avatar
    Join Date:  Jun 2011

    Location:  Los Angeles, CA

    Posts:    396

    My VIN:    6472

    I just replaced my side mirrors today. It looks like there's three slots for those orange pieces. On mine I had only two of them on each side (driver and passenger), the top one was missing. My guess is these are just there for better alignment (or maybe the originally planned heated mirror functionality?). The center part with the screw is what drives the movement of the mirror glass.

    20171230_133925.jpg20171230_133932.jpg

  3. #3
    Member Maritime-elf's Avatar
    Join Date:  Nov 2017

    Location:  Clewiston, FL

    Posts:    93

    My VIN:    3349

    Club(s):   (SCDC) (DCUK)

    Hmm so even if I only have one of the red things I could put it back on. To be honest I never noticed any reduction of functionality but I figured if the drivers side had them the passenger side should too.

  4. #4
    Senior Member
    Join Date:  May 2011

    Posts:    605

    I also had a missing red thing, the question is - why ?!?

    If I remember correctly (>10 years ago) the mirror was less vibrating with two of these things.


    How could it get lost ?
    Was it ever installed ?

  5. #5
    10515 dtavres's Avatar
    Join Date:  Nov 2015

    Location:  Marceline, MO

    Posts:    228

    My VIN:    10515

    Club(s):   (PNDC)

    Who knows how to do 3D printing? I bet those red/orange "studs" could be 3D printed pretty well.

  6. #6
    Senior Member
    Join Date:  Sep 2011

    Location:  Middleburg Heights, OH

    Posts:    1,939

    Quote Originally Posted by dtavres View Post
    Who knows how to do 3D printing? I bet those red/orange "studs" could be 3D printed pretty well.
    I mean, I literally started a company over far more complicated 3D designs than these studs:

    20180107_151833.jpg

    Reflectors are still considered the "holy grail" of 3D printing however and that plus the archaic DOT laws now relegate me to working within the OEM/1983 DOT confines. Not that I haven't spent countless man hours and prototypes trying to make it work however, but even teamwork from a fellow 3D printing guy with an optical engineering degree and an SLS machine hasn't been able to pull it off. Ultimately it's just the technology at play sadly, 3D printing is too rough for photons of light. Anyways, rambling side banter aside, on to the current design.

    I'll reverse engineer this guy with OpenSCAD and Thingiverse this guy if someone can send me a peg, metal clip included. And heck, I'll print a bunch off too. Printing cost in raw materials and time and even electricity is at most 25 cents each, we're at the point where postage is far more expensive than the part itself, I don't mind. My printer's VERY capable of precise, dimensionally accurate prints, even more so than the ones pictured above (which was done on less-capable FDM hardware outsourced to a guy that convinced me to give him about $300 to pay for those three prototypes that are just abysmal in quality and have VERY visible brush strokes for color.). I have three sets of calipers, two digital, one manual, for ultimate in measuring cred. (Is that a thing? I'll make it one.)

    For the metal tabs, cut up an old beverage can (beer, soda, pop, cola, whatever it's called in your area) and the natural curvature will help in making it more "springy". You'll need needle-nose pliers, I'd probably recommend the tiny Hakko ones given the size of the metal, for filament type, ABS or PETG would work best, although I've found that M3D's ABS-R brand is a variant of PETG that reduces stringiness while also handling wild temperature fluctuations. To put it this way, PLA dash cam mounts failed within 24 hours. ABS-R mounts lasted the life of the car until I traded it in, so a couple years Roof window seat, literally the hottest part of that interior, a side cam too, stuff is durable and shouldn't flop around at all. ABS will snap if it gets cold, ABS-R has no such issues. Comes in all different colors, I don't think I have much red left (most of mine is now PLA for artistic purposes), but I do have PETG and ABS-R. In what seems like a cruel joke however, the only color I have is black. "Hey, that tiny part you just dropped, what color is it?" "Same color as the shadow below the car, you know, black"... yeah that's not a punchline I'm going for. I'll be ordering a legitimate color rather than just a shade from M3D soon, I'm low on filament already and they got some new stuff in I think (how do I have like every shade ever and no colors anyways?!)

  7. #7
    Member Maritime-elf's Avatar
    Join Date:  Nov 2017

    Location:  Clewiston, FL

    Posts:    93

    My VIN:    3349

    Club(s):   (SCDC) (DCUK)

    Shep I can send you the peg...as long as you are willing to send it back with a copy. I sent you a private message get back to me if you are interested.

  8. #8
    Senior Member
    Join Date:  Sep 2011

    Location:  Middleburg Heights, OH

    Posts:    1,939

    Thanks for the reminder! I started to write up a response and literally got lost somewhere between my father-in-law painting our living room and running around town for supply runs. Still have it, but it was rambling and long and I was in between shortening it and distractions, so I will make this an open offer this time. Which is... still... long... (sorry, had a few points to address, so paragraphing each point to hopefully help readability/skippability!)

    I moved into a new house end of February, so things are still very much a mess inside, and my 3D printers are offline until the "tech room" they're going into can be eradicated fully of mold. There's drywall that needs to be replaced before I will move anything into there, to absolutely minimize the effects of what gets airborne and spreads. In other words, I can't 3D print new ones yet. That said!!!

    I am more than able to design new ones, even remotely if someone already has a peg and a set of digital calipers. Then, once I get my 3D printers up and running, I can 3D print off a few test pieces, and if they measure up right and people report successful fitments, I can print off probably a few hundred in one go if I felt like it and just keep sending them out to people as need be. I know Maritime-elf mentioned it being a good money maker, but, I've got slightly bigger fish to fry, so this will remain free, open source, and heck I can see about making "take - free" boxes (what do you call those?) available for DCS events maybe? Long-term thinking out loud.

    Someone who has their mirrors apart remind me of the peg's function real quick: does that metal strip serve to add pressure that keeps the peg inside the black socket? I'm thinking similar to a leaf suspension at the moment.

    As for dimensions, DMC was pretty bad at mixing imperial and metric in finalized designs for no rhyme or reason. Side markers for example are imperial and I've blueprinted down to minimum 1/4" increments, while the taillights are metric and I've blueprinted down to minimum 5 mm increments. I would not be surprised if this turns out to be a series of tiny imperial fractions, but I hope it's metric, for all of our sakes. You can usually move the calipers to visually check if a nice, more round number works still. If it does, it's probably spot-on.

    I drew a mock-up of the peg in LibreCAD and put letters for the dimensions I would need. Can someone with digital calipers and a peg handy get me dimensions for the following?



    - - - -
    A - Overall height of peg
    B - Overall square width of peg
    C - Height from bottom of peg to top of square section
    D - Diameter of ball (might match B)
    - - - -
    E - Overall width of peg including metal tabs
    F - Height of metal tabs at insert points to peg
    G - Width of metal tabs
    - - - -

    At that point I should be able to 3D print a whole bunch when my 3D printers are back online, and also when I acquire the new filament I will be using, but the color alone will make it easy to identify (new ones will assuredly not be red, likely monochrome). I have a lead to really good filament for the application (M3D), but I need to figure out how much "give" the material has, which might be sufficient to install without any metal tabs at all if I design it correctly.

    But aside from all that, I can at least model an exact replica and Thingiverse an STL file also (here's my current designs on there), so anyone with their own 3D printer can get one printed and test it. But I need to be blunt: probably 98% of the guys I've dealt with on the 3D printing community think it's normal for a 3D printer to not be fully dimensionally accurate, so just a fair warning that if it doesn't fit and someone else prints it, that doesn't inherently mean the design is bad, it could be as simple as configuration or capabilities of the printer too.

  9. #9
    10515 dtavres's Avatar
    Join Date:  Nov 2015

    Location:  Marceline, MO

    Posts:    228

    My VIN:    10515

    Club(s):   (PNDC)

    How did you remove the mirror?

    Do you just "pull" it?

    Do you need to get the red/orange 'studs' to pop out of their holders?

  10. #10
    Senior Member Gregadeth's Avatar
    Join Date:  Jun 2011

    Location:  Los Angeles, CA

    Posts:    396

    My VIN:    6472

    Quote Originally Posted by dtavres View Post
    How did you remove the mirror?

    Do you just "pull" it?

    Do you need to get the red/orange 'studs' to pop out of their holders?
    A heat gun and a plaster spatula to remove the mirror glass. Then undo that center screw to remove the back plate. The orange pieces easily pop in and out of the back plate, and they just slide into the slots on the mirror mechanism.

Page 1 of 2 1 2 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •