Turbo67

Passenger side mirror has been floppy since I bought the truck a month ago.



Decided to see if I could do something about this without spending any money.

The black plastic cover will not snap off from the outside as it has three screws holding it to the assembly. Those screws are only accessible after removing the mirror from the vehicle.

The door panel either has to come off or be pried away from the area of the mirror to access three nuts that hold the mirror to the door. I chose to remove the door panel.





Remove the upper Phillips head panel screw near the mirror on the inside.


Remove the two Phillips head screws inside the door handle.


Remove the inner door handle with a 10 mm socket.


To remove the door panel I used two trim removers stacked together . The flat one to find and surround the plastic panel fastener and the one with the screwdriver handle to pry out the plastic fastener using the flat one to spread out the load. Most of my plastic fasteners actually popped out of the panel rather than popping out of the door. Amazingly this did not rip the plastic of the door. To replace them, they slide sideways into the panel.





There are around 14 white plastic panel fasteners holding the door panel on.


Between the door panel and the mirror is a thick piece of foam insulation.


You will have to unfasten 3 electrical connectors: One for the mirror, assuming you have electric mirrors, one for the power window and another for the power door lock. This takes a small screw driver to both unclip the plastic clips and carefully pry apart the power window and door lock electrical connectors. ***Warning, unhook the battery before doing this as the door lock is always powered and if your lucky, you will only blow a fuse and not fry the wiring by shorting the hot wire and a ground wire****

This is very cumbersome, have the small screw driver handy as you have to hold onto the panel and try to disconnect the connectors at the same time.

Turbo67

The wires to the mirror have a rubber grommet that has to be pushed through to the outside. I left one nut lightly in place to hold the mirror while I manipulated the grommet through the hole.





Once you have the mirror on a workbench, carefully work the foam/rubber seal away from the backside of the mirror. You will need this later, so don’t tear it. A plastic or wood scraper would work for this.


Under the foam/rubber seal you will see there is a flat spring steel plate held in place with two small torx-head screws. Under this plate is a detent that locks the mirror in position for driving, or allows it to release for automated car washers or as in my case, driving onto my lift. The mirrors stick out far enough to hit the posts of my lift, so I have to swing them against the side windows for clearance.






The detent presses against the vertical shaft of the mirror and that shaft has a slot cut into it for the detent to engage.
I removed the flat spring plate and the detent underneath.






There are three torx-head screws that hold the outer plastic cover in place. Once you remove them, you can manipulate the cover away from the mounting portion of the mirror and slide it up the vertical shaft away from the mount.




3 Screws that hold the outer black plastic cover to the mirror.





3 Screws that hold the outer black plastic cover to the mirror.





3 Screws that hold the outer black plastic cover to the mirror.

Turbo67

Behind the plastic cover is a square steel cover / cradle that squeezes the vertical shaft. 4 torx-head screws hold it in place and apply the pressure –friction fit to the shaft. Two of my screws were not fully seated. This is most likely why my mirror was loose. Under the square cradle is a round piece of plastic, looks like a pvc tube, with a slot cut in it for clearance for the detent.



Steel cradle that applies pressure to vertical shaft.





Detent in center of mounting base that locks vertical shaft in driving position.






Tube that gets squeezed by cradle.





Detent slot for driving position of mirror.

I slid the round plastic piece up the shaft as far as I could and lightly polished the shaft with 600 sand paper to remove and scratches and gouges.

When I removed my 4 screws holding the square cradle in place, they were very hard to unscrew. Even the two that were not fully seated. I noticed that two of the screws had aluminum smeared into the threads. This aluminum was from the threads inside the mounting base. I had to open these two threads in this aluminum casting to 1/4-20. I used a starting tap and a bottoming tap. I did not open the diameter of the holes with a drill, I just slowly worked the tapered starting tap into the hole and finished up with a bottoming tap.

Thinking that I needed additional clamping force against the shaft to keep it from flopping, I cut a piece of plastic shim from a gallon milk jug and placed it under the cradle. I slipped it into place so the cradle would apply a little more clamp against the PVC looking plastic piece. However with the addition of the two Ľ-20 screws and the Ľ” flatwashers I used, once tightened up, this became solid and would not pivot. I did not have enough wear on the shaft to require the thin plastic shim that I made. Turns out in my case, I had to grease the shaft with white lithium grease as the increased force from the new Ľ-20 screws that now seat fully, was all the additional clamping force I needed.





Plastic milk-jug shim, but only use if your shaft is worn.

When assembling the round PVC tube, the slot has to align with the detent slot in the mounting base.


The mounting base has a protrusion that keeps the mirror from rotating too far forward or backwards. Make sure that protrusion is aligned with the cutout in the vertical shaft. The mounting base also has raised areas that hold the pvc tube from slipping out. Don’t clamp those into the tube, but rather place the tube so it lays between the upper and lower protrusions.




Mounting base lip / protrusion that limits swing of mirror





Vertical shaft tabs that limit swing of mirror. Align this with base.

Turbo67

I did a couple of trial fits back on the door to see how much force it took to rotate the mirror.

I felt like my detent needed a little tightening. I used the milk carton again to cut a small folded shim to place under the flat spring.







Folded milk-jug shim to increase detent pressure.





Place shim over detent.





Flat detent spring and new folded shim.





Flat spring and folded shim installed.


This worked well, with a satisfying “snapping noise” when the detent engages the slot in the vertical shaft. I takes a slight jerking action to un-detent the mirror now. The white lithium grease is definitely needed for this to all work smoothly with the increased clamping and detent forces.

All in all, I am very satisfied with how this now works.

Tallguy67

Excellent writeup, thanks!!

DRam11

Thanks for the write up and photos. My '97 has the same floppy mirror, but after today it won't. There are upsides to rainy days that keep one from working in the yard.