side mirror question (1 Viewer)

[voorland80]

ok, searched but couldn't find answer to this prob - has anyone lost a bearing from a side mirror and had to replace? where did you go/ what replacement bearing did you use?
driver side mirror suddenly was loose (pivot part, actual mirror not loose), while investigating two bearings fell down and are lost. i measured 4.91mm dia for remaining bearing (should be three) but nothing on hand is close. i see bearings on amazon but no 4.91 size and not particularly wanting to order 500 bearings to replace two.
has anyone had similar problem and what was your fix?
plan on doing bolt fix for center pivot but need to figure out what to do about lost bearings
thanks for your time

 

[voorland80]

was in process of stealing some bearings out of a swivel tray (they were too big) when found caliper was wigging out - AND bearing size is actually 5mm so that sorta simplifies the situation
back to amazon for a big pack of bearings and won't have to use or sacrifice spare land cruiser mirror pictured (finish not as glossy as lx450) but at least it's standby if repair fails

 

[Rifleman]

On My 1994 the only thing that held my folding mirror in place on the bracket that bolts the mirror to the window frame,

Is a VERY strong coil spring applying spring tension to hold the mirror in one of it's folding detent positions, and a big C clip, no bearings involved at all,

That spring is held in place by two notches cut into a shaft that the C clip slides into,

In my case, one of those notches failed (the lip of the shaft broke off) allowing the C clip to come free, thereby removing all spring tension and allowing the mirror to freely flop back, and forth,

I tried a quick fix of cutting two new notches in the shaft and reinstalling the spring, and C clip, that held for awhile, but failed again,

The only long term fix for me was to buy a used, or new mirror, in my case i bought 2 new mirrors, one for each side,

My passenger side mirror ended up breaking the same way as my drivers side did, about a year later,

 

[voorland80]

no bearings? hmmm
welp got a bearing kit from amazon with assorted sizes and found 5mm to be perfect fit. First pic shows fit of bearings in three stops of bottom part of mirror. This was just to check fit. Bearings are meant to seat into upper (black) part. Not shown in pic but I used some white bicycle grease to hold them in place in upper seats when I assembled. Also put a bit of grease on the bearing "track" and on spring top & bottom.

 

[voorland80]

got in hurry (never a good idea) to just get it done and used black rtv to attach back of mirror to bracket.
used black rtv last time was in here to fix shaky mirror and it has held for over ten years. when cured, rtv holds securely and remains flexible while holding mirror steady and eliminating shaky mirror syndrome.
when took apart to access this time around just had to push up mirror from bottom to separate sections and it was easy to do. cleaned up old rtv and put on fresh rtv to reattach mirror.

 

[voorland80]

small drawback to using rtv to attach mirror to bracket is that it can make it tricky to plug in wires if get in hurry and forget to do so before attaching mirror with the rtv
so, this is a reminder to future self
also since spare mirror had cut wires used those to make extension using mini spade connectors - well two are mini and third is mini-and-a-half - it's all i could find at that moment.
of course being in a hurry means forgot to include black plastic mirror gasket and to route wires through it so had to redo

 

[voorland80]

this mess of a thread is not in order but this shows bolt and flat washers used to repair the floppy mirror (not to be confused with shaky mirror)
finished breaking off bent ears/tabs of pivot post with vise grips for better seat of fender washers. bolt is a little long but it's what i had on hand and it works. also used aircraft nut with nylon insert on this one.

 

[voorland80]

on top of it all the inner plastic cover broke when popped off - often does - but wasn't too concerned as i had extra cover on hand.
not shown in pic but in addition to upper stem snapping the cover also broke there at top-third.
if it had just been upper stem i would have been ready with the handy dandy black rtv
i used some white bicycle grease (again) to lube bottom clips and upper stem hole.
this may have saved me from breaking the spare plastic cover as after finishing job i soon saw something wasn't right then realized i had forgotten the black plastic mounting gasket before attaching whole mirror assembly to door. this is where quick-disconnect helped a lot.
will follow-up later to check that extra wire length clears window channel.

 

[voorland80]

ps - apologies tried to fix blank gaps in thread but don't know what's goin on there

 

[Outsane]

Nice work!