Rear View Mirror Jiggly -- and how I fixed it
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2020 11:36 am
All of a sudden, my rearview mirror was all loose and jiggly — the one in the middle of the windshield, hanging formt he roof. I guessed after a decade of driving on logging roads, the screws that mount the mirror to the roof had loosened up. Went to tighten the screws, and all three were perfectly tight. So I took the mirror off, and the way it’s mounted, there are these two, tubular springs holding it in. I guess it’s mounted this way to damp vibration, so that the mirror is clear, while everything else in the van is vibrating.
Good luck finding replacement springs, for the rear view mirror in a 24 year old Grey Import. So I didn’t even bother trying. Instead I looked up on YouTube, “How to renew springs.”
I found a video in which a guy shows how he puts a coil spring onto a piece of threaded rod, and with nuts and washers holds the spring in what he wants to be the rest position. Then he heats it cherry red with a propane torch, and when it’s cooled it’s regained its springiness.
I found a couple of metric bolts just slightly larger than the tubular springs, and tapped the bolts with a hammer through the springs, spreading them apart slightly. Then holding the bolt with vice grips, I heated the spring cherry red with a propane torch. Did the second spring the same.
I removed the charred bolts, reassembled the mirror mount, and it works like it did before. No jiggling anymore.
If it lasts another ten years, most of the rest of the vehicle will be gone anyway. Just a rearview mirror, lying on the road where I used to park my L300.
Good luck finding replacement springs, for the rear view mirror in a 24 year old Grey Import. So I didn’t even bother trying. Instead I looked up on YouTube, “How to renew springs.”
I found a video in which a guy shows how he puts a coil spring onto a piece of threaded rod, and with nuts and washers holds the spring in what he wants to be the rest position. Then he heats it cherry red with a propane torch, and when it’s cooled it’s regained its springiness.
I found a couple of metric bolts just slightly larger than the tubular springs, and tapped the bolts with a hammer through the springs, spreading them apart slightly. Then holding the bolt with vice grips, I heated the spring cherry red with a propane torch. Did the second spring the same.
I removed the charred bolts, reassembled the mirror mount, and it works like it did before. No jiggling anymore.
If it lasts another ten years, most of the rest of the vehicle will be gone anyway. Just a rearview mirror, lying on the road where I used to park my L300.