E30 Zone

Hi All,

Want to get the electric mirrors mount shot blasted - but need to get the sprung loaded plastic mirrors removed first.

any ideas how to do so please without snapping the plastic backing?

Thanks in anticipation..shaun

This is what I need to separate...somehow

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/6945/2 ... 121810.jpg

IT can be done, with a lot of patience,leverage and a little plastic edge damage

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/5793 ... 172700.jpg

As far as I can discover,it is not possible to seperate the mirror housing from it's mounting bracket....and re-assemble...

Cheers bud, spent half hour looking and prodding, have to agree with you.

It can be done, with a lot of patience,leverage and a little plastic edge damage

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/5793 ... 172700.jpg

That looks really handy! Can you explain how you did it?

Grrrmachine wrote:That looks really handy! Can you explain how you did it?

Remove mirrors completely from car. Underside of mirrors there is an access hole, flat head screwdriver into cogged plastic ring and push up to release the mirror glass. That gives you access to the electric motor, remove four screws to release the motor. The four pin plug pins push through out of the plug and feed the wires through, remove motor completely.

Five plastic lugs holding mirror backing on the aluminium, take a drill, countersink the plastic pillars until they are below the alloy.

With a very small flat head screwdriver, prise the plastics apart and insert another screwdriver to prise further round - TIME consuming and nipped my ifnger ends loads! The outer plastic is castellated and will pop off, with a bit of patience.

Immersing the plastics in very hot water helped a bit too. Good luck

When I put them back together, after powder coating aluminium, I'm going to use silicone to mount the plastics back onto the aluminium

Great stuff. I'll wikify that later.

Grrrmachine wrote:Great stuff. I'll wikify that later.

Silicone will hold them together until you want to turn them on the base, you need something much stronger like epoxy or plastic weld them

DanThe wrote:Silicone will hold them together until you want to turn them on the base, you need something much stronger like epoxy or plastic weld them

The plastics clamp tightly around he aluminium mount and with the motor back i and attached I reckon silicone would do it - if not, a bit of no nails!

righty well I found a nice glue, only realising how good it was months after buying it. I used it once and it didn't really perform as I expected & I threw it in a draw. Thought I'd give it another go, re sticking a facelift fog light rubber surround back in place, I clamped it up and left it to set for an hour & it's been firmly attached ever since.

It's similar to hot, hot glue in consistency, dries ever so slightly rubbery, harder than cold hot glue, but much more resilient so will allow for flex, and once it's stuck it's very much stuck.

http://www.bostik.co.uk/diy/product/evo ... us-Glue/16

Well worth the £4-5, and will do this very well. If it permanently stuck rubber to glass I'm guessing it'll stick pretty much anything (except polyethylene & polypropylene alegedy)

cheers dude.

Pliogrip 7700 if you can get your hands on it, got some they were throwing out from work (out of date but works fine). Dispensers are hard to get though.