Mirror Repair

[spitsnrovers]

Hope this helps someone else.
I've just repaired the housing of a power mirror on my '88 Westfalia.

The PO had smacked into something and broken the cast aluminum shank off inside the swivel of the housing. To fix it he simply drilled up through the plastic housing and put a 1/4" bolt through it - chewing off the wiring in the process!

After dismantling the assembly, I used a Dremel tool to grind out the inside of the aluminum remains of the shank in the bottom of the housing just big enough to tap it with a 5/8" coarse thread tap. Had to take care to keep the hole concentric with the original shank.

Liking the technical stuff, I made a replacement shank out of aluminum, threaded one end to 5/8", and threaded the other end to suit the original metric nut. Drilled the centre out to 5/16".

Smeared the 5/8" threads with JB weld and screwed the new shank into the mirror housing. The rest of it will go together as per the original.

Perhaps the same repair could have been done with a 5/8" pipe, but the metric nut at the bottom has a special shape to match the washer next to the spring.

Hope it helps someone.