I've had this problem since I got the car...my outside rear view mirrors (Electric) shake because the nuts securing them to the car are loose.
How fragile are these nuts? I know they secure into the plastic housing...
Anybody know what size they are?
What's the best way to get at them?
I have my door panels off, but I really can't see up in there too well so I figured I'd ask

 

nut is welded to the door. i recommend pulling the mirror apart, and carefully reassembling.

 

Your problem is most likely the bolts between the mirror base and the door. To pull the mirror apart, you have 2 screws that hold the mirror to the base on the underside. Once you pull the main part of the mirror, you will see the plug and the 2 Phillips head bolts in the base.

 

Yep, The inside-the-door nuts are are welded to a doubler plate that is in turn spot-welded to the inside of the door skin. They only way they can come loose is if the plate itself has broken loose, or a nut was severely over-torqued and ripped loose from the plate. Both unlikely.

Either the screws that hold the base into those nuts are loose, or the plastic trim piece that goes between the mirror base and the door skin has compressed with time, and let the screws slack off.

Even when everything's tight, they do still vibrate very slightly, but no more than any other door mirror.

 

????
So I do not get at the nut/screw from the inside?

How do I get at the screw from the outside? Does the mirror itself "pop" off?

Sorry...I just can't see where to start???

 

Everything is on the outside of the car. No need to pull the door panel or anything.

Look at the underside of the mirror, you will see the first two screws.

 

Two screws under the mirror head on the outside of the car hold the head on the metal base.

Remove those; move the head out of the way. Look down the open neck and you'll see two philips heads. Those are the screws that hold the base to the body, from the outside.

 

If you still don't see it, I can take a pic for you. It usually takes less than 10 min to pull the mirror. Very easy job.

 

Thank you...very easy

Both side were loose...(screws), it helped to tighten on the passenger side, but didn't help much on the drivers side? Seems like the plate on the inside of the door panel is loose....Anything I can do there?

 

not really anything you can do about the plate, reweld maybe.

 

You could re-weld, but you'd have to re-paint the door since the spot-weld that holds it goes to the exterior skin.

Take the mirror all the way off & verify if it's the plate that's actually moving around. If it is; I'd suggest cleaning up inside the door very carefully, letting it dry, then building up a good fillet of strong epoxy between the plate and the door skin, afterward using the screws and base of the mirror to hold it tightly in place while the epoxy hardens.

That would give you a stronger-than-original bond, as the plate was only tack-welded with one weld to begin with, IIRC.

I have some salvaged door plates on my workbench at home; I'll take a shot of them tonight when I get home so you can see what they look like clearly.

 

Door reinforcement plate, outboard (door skin side) view:

(Note remnants of body panel adhesive)

Inboard side. The small off-center drilled hole is where the spot weld to the door skin went - was drilled out here.


The long straight edge goes up into the top of the door.