Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 13:17:31 -0500
Reply-To: Dave Caston & Sherrie Payne <cdcaston@NNI.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dave Caston & Sherrie Payne <cdcaston@NNI.COM>
Subject: Re: mirrors won't stay in place on 84
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Also, my side mirrors are having trouble staying in place. Is there a way to
>tighten those?
You can remove the two phillips screws holding the mirror on the van and
tighten the bolt underneath to increase resistance on the spring. This
works most of the time. But more severe is whenthe stud pulls free from the
cast housing.
If tightening the bolt inderneath doesn't work because the stud is pulling
free from the mirror housing; here's what I did and 6-8 months later they
are doing great. These mirrors only cost 19.95 to replace though I've heard
some say they still are floppy.
***************************
This is to pass along a fix for non-remote mirrors.
So, you've got floppy mirrors, eh? Well the following repair that I made to
my passenger side mirror has been working fine and doesn't take a lot of
talent (good thing in my case).
You will need:
tube of JB Weld
vise
Vise grips
bench grinder (wear safety goggles/gloves/french maid uniform if you want)
keen line of vision
beer (optional)
1-Remove mirror from side of door. (If you can't do this, stop reading now!)
2-Disassemble the nut/spring assembly making note of where things go. Draw
a picture if you need to.
3-Now...place the arm of the mirror in a vise so that you can pull on the
stud extending from the swivel part. and it won't slip. Pad it with some
old cloths or something. Don't tighten to tight.
4-With appropriately sized vise grip, grasp the smooth part of the shaft &
clamp down firmly.
5-Pull the stud. Pull some more. Pull hard enough to pull it out.
6-When stud is removed; rest, have a beer. Look at the way the bolt emerges
from the socket. Remember it.
7-Now to use the grinder. Just remove material from the surfaces of each of
the six sides and the end to make room for JB Weld to fuse the metal stud
and the white cast metal of the mirror support arm. I removed about 1-1.5
mm I would guess.
8-Periodically test fit the stud to fit loosely in the previous home of the
mirror support arm. You want enough room to glop some JB weld in there and
get a good contact between the two.
9-Mix up JB Weld.
10- Glop some JB Weld into the hole. Glop some JB Weld onto the surface of
the stud. Not too much, just coat _all_ surfaces.
11-Insert stud so that it resembles it's position before you removed it.
12- Clean around area of socket to ensure smooth surface contact between
the ball and the socket.
13-Assemble to look for clearances. Fix any problrms. Quickly. Dissasemble
before curing.
14-Postion the mirror for curing so that the stud protruding from the arm
now points straight up or position a clamp to hold it in place during
curing.
15-After about a day or so resemble and enjoy a tight mirror.!
Looking backward,
Dave Caston & Sherrie Payne
Allentown,PA
zzzzzzzzzz__
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