Outside Mirror Parts

[DeanG]

Corvettes are popular so I have been looking at Mid America Motorworks http://www.mamotorworks.com It looks like some of the following may be a fit for the M100. I have bought tools from this company. The question is what if any of the mirror stuff matches the M100.

606-315 1985-1996 Trunion, outside mirror $6.99
686-400 Rearview Mirror Stud-Ball $5.99

[superbad]

That stud is definitely different (lacks the push-on spring feature at the end). Not to say it wouldn't work though.

[rip]

The Lotus studs are obsolete, so that one would be well worth a try.
You may well be in luck.

[Brit-Car-Nut]

That is for the later mirror design. The lotus parts are around 35% smaller in every detail. Same for the trunnion.

[Specky]

The closest motors I can find is the Buick reatta and cadillac STS, but they're not correct. The GM conection is there, and they share the same OEM manufacturer. I have not identified 100% who made the motors for GM, but they made the lotus motors and mirror housing shells as well. I know I'm close to resolving this but I keep drawing a blank at the final step.

TTFN

[DeanG]

Thanks folks. I was considering ordering a few to see if they fit our application. If they did it looked like a good way to go since Mid America sells outside of North America.

[Enright]

Has anyone found any reasonably priced springs to replace the 2 big ones that secure the mirror to the car?

I've just discovered that this area of my project car has been rather badly butchered.
It looks as though the springs either broke or went missing, so as a temporary "fix", a previous owner simply screwed the inner and outer parts of the main pivot assembly together!
This was (sort of) OK until someone clouted the mirror, and then the whole assembly broke.

There was a replacement mirror supplied with the car, but unfortunately this has been mullered too!
At some point it looks as though it has also received a whack, and some clever person has pulled the entire mirror away from the car and twisted it through a rotation or two. This has damaged the main springs beyond repair, and also trapped and broken many of the wires to the mirror heater and motors.

It's a good lesson if your mirror gets smacked and ends up hanging to be very careful about how you untwist it, or you could end up with electrical problems.

If I could just replace the springs in each mirror, I could make them both fully functional again as the rubber boot would hide any damage, but the springs look pretty specialist.

[Enright]

This is worth a bit of a PS, because I've just received a related question by PM, and I forgot that things had moved on a bit since the above post.

If you're unfamiliar with the mirror housing, then there is no pivot pin as such - there are 2 very long (and very strong) springs that run right from the mounting to almost the outer end of the mirror body - behind the electrical adjustment mech.
At the "mounting" end they hook round metal pegs.
At the "mirror body" end they are secured (by rusty old starlock washers) to plastic lugs moulded into the body.
If one of the springs fails, then the other may just about be enough to hold the mirror in place, but if they both go then the entire thing will just hang by the wires.
If you're lucky, one of the starlock washers may simply have corroded and popped off, allowing a spring to pop off too.
They're a bugger to get back on though.

With strong pliers I was able to bend what was left of my broken springs back into approximately the right shape. They now have fewer coils, so could be more prone to failing if subjected to abuse.
Then I found it best to put the entire assembly on something soft (you don't want to scratch the paintwork on the housing), and use a wide flatbladed screwdriver to lever the springs back into position. Even better if you can use a bit of hot wire to melt a small notch into the moulded lug first, because then the spring naturally wants to drop into it, rather than pop off again.
I have a spare mirror that I've repaired that's already off - here's a pic of how it looks. The wires going to the heated mirror elements are missing, but apart from that and the starlock washers it's just about complete.

[Specky]

Enners,

Do you still require any bits for your cars mirrors or are you sorted?

I think I may have the mirror wires/socket in the loft... May have a few other bitz

Here's my dormant thread, scroll down a bit for the mirror bit...

viewtopic.php?f=79&t=11475&p=247660&hilit=+Mirror#p247660

TTFN

[Enright]

Hi Dave,

Appreciate the offer but I think I'm sorted - both cars have a full compliment (for now), and the one in the picture is just a spare. So barring disasters...