heck of a time putting mirror mounts on

superj

Active member
man, what a pain in the butt. those dang nuts on the backside of the bolts holding the hinges on are a pain to get to on the driver's side.

the torx is a t40

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the passenger mirror went on like nothing. i could slide my hand up behind the speaker and hold the wrench on while i turned the ratchet with the other hand. before you get to that point though, use an 18" breaker bar and push the torx in the bolt while you smoothly apply large amounts of pressure. with the longer lever arm, 18", its very easy to hold the torx in place so it doesn't slip out while you push.

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for the driver's side though, you will need as much room as you can get. as you can see, i pulled some bolts out, a windshield latch and also held the dash out with a screwdriver.

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i thought all was going well but i could not get the dang wrench to get on the nut. shoot, i couldn't even feel the nuts or the tip of the bolt. all i could feel was a big lump of some kind of seam liner or filler. after a whole lot of bending my wrist in weird angles and trying to scrape with my finger nails and some small screwdrivers, i got a bunch of this off.

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this is the big chunks that came off, not the tiny stuff i got off little itty bitty piece by piece. you can see how coated the nuts were here, i think.

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finally got the mount on. when i get tired of this jeep and want a newer model, these are staying on and will go with the jeep.

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after you put everything back together, check everything to make sure it still works and do some touch up painting.

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here is the finished driver's side product, roughly 4 hours after i started.

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i am going to have to hit up the pick n pull to find some better mirrors. i haven't gone out and tried them but they are not nearly as steady as my one tj mirror i had on the driver's door. i would like to get a taller thinner mirror, like stock mirrors, so they are close the body and can be seen easily from the driver's seat. i have them set up so i can see them easily through the wing windows but i know the espousa won't be able to see through the passenger mirror. they are also set up well enough the doors don;t whack them at full swing.
 

Heard you could put earlier Jeep YJ or early TJ mirrors on the sides. Might search. If I find it I'll post it.

Also the bolts have loctite on them heating the Torx in the bolt with a torch softens the loctite. PB blaster soaking for 1 or 2 days is also key. And having a good Torx is important.
 
i bought a brand new torx socket and put pb on for about an hour before starting. the long handle breaker bar with no extension on it is the best thing i have found for breaking free torx fittings. with a 10" ratchet, torx fittings strip like crazy because you are straining so hard to break them free sometimes. with that long breaker bar, you barely push on it and they start turning so you can really apply some energy to holding them into the torx fitting if you want to. since i started using that long breaker bar though, i have never had to push that hard to hold the socket in the fitting, it just works great for me.

i have the one cool tj mirror. i have to find something to pop the lock washer off though, its got a star washer that sits in a groove on the stud.

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those are the mirrors i thought could be used but you have to find a really good pair because they get old and floppy and don;t stay i place after a while. the wife had those mirrors.

i have been looking around though and no one is trying to get rid of any at the moment
 
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