Pictorial on side mirror disassembly & repair
02-02-05, 08:37 PM
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Pictorial on side mirror disassembly & repair
All original credits for this need to go to badddrx7...without his post I would have never even tried this. This post is meant as a pictorial based on his original instructions. His original post can be found here .
My driver's side mirror had been rattling since I bought the car. Finally on my last trip out of town, it fell out of the mirror housing and dangled by the motor wires. So my reassembly is based off of this rather than taking the mirror apart before it falls apart. Only thing you need to do is heat the mirror up while its in the housing, otherwise its exactly as the pictures show.
First thing I did was put a towel over the work area to protect my paint. My mirror was already dangling so I removed the metal bracket and housing "ring". This step wasn't necessary but I wanted to get an idea about how it all came apart.
I then used my girlfriend's hair straightener (LOL I know) to heat up the mirror, and used a plastic butter knife to pry around the edges of the mirror backing, until I could get the knife underneath. As stated in the original post, don't use anything metal or you could break the mirror. Just be persistant and the mirror will eventually come off. Here's a shot of the mirror backing and the mirror itself, so you can get an idea of where the adhesive is.
After removing the mirror, unscrew the screw in the middle and pull the white spacer out behind it. Then pull the mirror off the motor. There will be two white "posts" that go into the motor, they are threaded. Keep pulling on the mirror backing and it will come off.
Here's a shot of the motor after the mirror backing was removed and the motor was reattached to the metal frame in the mirror. The pic is a little blurry but you can see the 4 screws holding it in place. These had originally worked their way out and caused the entire assembly to fall out. If you have a wobbly mirror but the housing itself doesn't move, then these screws are coming loose.
This is the mirror backing, upside-down. The white posts are at the 3 & 6 o'clock positions. You need to pop these out of the backing. I did this by placing the backing on a dead rotor I had laying around (putting the posts in the center of the rotor) and pryed them out with a flat blade screwdriver.
The original instructions stated to put the posts back into the mirror after removing them from the backing. When I tried this, the posts would get pushed all the way in the motor and would no longer stick out enough to get pushed into the backing. So what I did was I took off the rubber boost protecting the motor, and put them on the posts. Then I put the posts back into the backing and pushed the entire piece back onto the motor, making sure that the rubber boost seat fully on the motor to seal out any moisture.
So here's a pic of the posts in the motor as the original instructions called for.
After the assembly is back together, I heated the backing with the straightener and pushed the mirror back onto it. For good measure I heated the mirror one more time, then pushed it firmly against the housing, to reseat the adhesive. Then I had a fully working mirror again with no wobbling!
My driver's side mirror had been rattling since I bought the car. Finally on my last trip out of town, it fell out of the mirror housing and dangled by the motor wires. So my reassembly is based off of this rather than taking the mirror apart before it falls apart. Only thing you need to do is heat the mirror up while its in the housing, otherwise its exactly as the pictures show.
First thing I did was put a towel over the work area to protect my paint. My mirror was already dangling so I removed the metal bracket and housing "ring". This step wasn't necessary but I wanted to get an idea about how it all came apart.
I then used my girlfriend's hair straightener (LOL I know) to heat up the mirror, and used a plastic butter knife to pry around the edges of the mirror backing, until I could get the knife underneath. As stated in the original post, don't use anything metal or you could break the mirror. Just be persistant and the mirror will eventually come off. Here's a shot of the mirror backing and the mirror itself, so you can get an idea of where the adhesive is.
After removing the mirror, unscrew the screw in the middle and pull the white spacer out behind it. Then pull the mirror off the motor. There will be two white "posts" that go into the motor, they are threaded. Keep pulling on the mirror backing and it will come off.
Here's a shot of the motor after the mirror backing was removed and the motor was reattached to the metal frame in the mirror. The pic is a little blurry but you can see the 4 screws holding it in place. These had originally worked their way out and caused the entire assembly to fall out. If you have a wobbly mirror but the housing itself doesn't move, then these screws are coming loose.
This is the mirror backing, upside-down. The white posts are at the 3 & 6 o'clock positions. You need to pop these out of the backing. I did this by placing the backing on a dead rotor I had laying around (putting the posts in the center of the rotor) and pryed them out with a flat blade screwdriver.
The original instructions stated to put the posts back into the mirror after removing them from the backing. When I tried this, the posts would get pushed all the way in the motor and would no longer stick out enough to get pushed into the backing. So what I did was I took off the rubber boost protecting the motor, and put them on the posts. Then I put the posts back into the backing and pushed the entire piece back onto the motor, making sure that the rubber boost seat fully on the motor to seal out any moisture.
So here's a pic of the posts in the motor as the original instructions called for.
After the assembly is back together, I heated the backing with the straightener and pushed the mirror back onto it. For good measure I heated the mirror one more time, then pushed it firmly against the housing, to reseat the adhesive. Then I had a fully working mirror again with no wobbling!
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