Painting of the Mirror Housing
Back to INDEX Back to MANUAL Index
 
 

Remove the black cover by carefully pulling it away or use a large screwdrive to dislodge it.
The black cover is mounted on the front door by two clips: these clips are still attached to the door when you have removed the cover.

Unplug the connector of the electric wiring of the mirror.

 

You have to losen the three allen bolts (nr.5) indicated by the yellow circles: be sure to support the mirror when you losen them.

Completely removed mirror.

 

Remove the two clips from the door. Be careful, don't let them drop inside the door: push them from the inside out, by using a small screwdriver..

Put de clips back into the cover. Just slide sideways over the lips. In this way you can simply put it back on its place.

 

Take a small screwdriver and remove the temperature sensor from the righthand mirror: the left side mirror only has a small lid, also remove this. The mirror glass can be removed by using two large screwdrivers. Be careful, don't break the glass!!! The glass is mounted on the servo motor with 4 clips. Put one of the screwdrivers between the glass and the motor. Use the other screwdriver to unlock one of the clips: Once you have unlocked one of the clips, you have some space to unlock the other clips.

Remove the three indicated torx screws (nr. 20).

 

Unscrew the philipshead from the servo-mechanism.

Also unscrew the second philipshead. The servo-mechanism can now be removed from the mirror housing.

 

Detach the connector of the temperature sensor.

Pull out the plug of the connector through the mirror base.

 

Now pull the electric wiring of the mechanism trough the mirror housing.

The mirror housing is now completely disassembled. Degrease it with some water and detergent.Then gently sand with waterproof sandpaper (grain 400). Do this also with the small lid from the left side housing and the temperature sensor from the right side housing.

 

The small lid from the leftside mirror housing can be put back in place. When assembling the complete mirror, you can easily push the mirror glass on to the servo motor.

Apply two thin layers of plastic primer on the housing and leave it to dry for a while.

 

The grey filler has two advantages :
1) the grey color gives more hiding power to the red paint, much better than the black color of the plastic housing
2) the filler fills up little roughness on the plastic surface. After application of the filler, you can sand the surface untill it's very smooth.
Again, use the grain 400 waterproof sandpaper together with lots of water.

Mirror housing spray painted with the grey primer/filler.

 

Housing sanded down very smoothly.

Don't forget to spray paint the temperature sensor also.

 

Housing sanded down very smoothly.

Don't forget to spray paint the temperature sensor also.

 

Both mirror housings are sprayed in the right color.

For the finishing touch, we apply several layers of clear coat. Don't wait to long with the clear coat, after you've sprayed the color. This will improved the attachement of the clear coat onto the colored paint. Now, leave clear coat to dry and harden for about 16 hours. This will minimize the risk of damages to your paint job.

 

The mirrors are assembled in reversed way and put back on the car. After our paint job, the mirror don't have a nice high gloss appearance. We can achieve this high gloss shine by polishing the clear coat with a polisher, like Commandant nr.4 (the green can). After polishing for a while, the mirrors get a nice high gloss appearance. That's also the reason why we applied the clear coat. Without the clear coat you would polish away the basic color and risk that we encounter the grey primer layer.

The JOB is done !!!