Loose Mirror Tech Article

[Thrasher]

I fell victim to Common SC/Carrerra maintenance issue #789, "Flag Mirror has vibrated loose" last week.

This is what it looks like:


As usual, there was a plethora of great information here on the PP forums on this common 911 repair topic, but alas, it was in about 20 threads and lacked a good flow. Minus great pictures, here is a walkthrough of how to handle this situation, which is likely to strike sooner or later (and perhaps multiple times).

And, if yours is only loose (not at the base, but at the "neck") don't ignore the situation because it will get worse and you may lose your mirror on the highway. Plus, just tightening up is much simpler than reassembling. Ounce of prevention...

Here's what you're looking at... #7 is a hollow bolt that threads into the main flag housing (#1). It vibrates loose and #1 flops, being retained only by the wiring that passes thru it to the positioning motor.




How to Repair

1. Remove the mirror glass. According to Bentley, If your 911 is up to '86, you will have the 3-prong attachment style. '87-'89 has the locking collar arrangement. Look at the bottom of the "flag" to see if there's an access port for the latter style (your mirrors may not be original and/or match from side-side on your car). My car is an '84 and mine were the 3-prong variety.

This photo shows the old (left) and new (right) styles. My 84-89 Bentley only shows the "new" style, despite pointing out that there are two styles.



I utilzed my wife's semi-rigid plastic spatula (not a flimsy rubber or silicone one). The idea here is to separate the glass piece (with integral heating coils) from the metal backing plate/motor housing. Keep in mind that both the plate and the glass move as one, and you're trying to separate the glass (mine had a plastic backing bonded to it) from the metal plate. There is a small (few mm) gap between the two; you insert the spatula/putty knife in that gap.

There are two clips on the inboard end of the mirror glass and one on the outboard, forming a triangle. Use a gentle prying motion and work your way around on each of the 4 sides of the glass. Be ready to catch the glass, it may just pop out. On the inboard end, it should have two brown wire leads to the mirror with rubber boots over the connections. Grab each one with needle nose and gently twist or pull outward to remove. Mine looked to have a decent amount of (aluminum ?) powdery oxidation on them. I sanded that off later. If you accomplish this step without breaking the glass, have a beer… this is one of the hardest steps.

Here is a good photo of the "old style" after prying off the plate, with its two brown wires still connected:



2. Remove the backing plate/motor housing from the mirror body. Its mounting screws are recessed, accessed by three holes forming another triangle (complimentary to the triangle formed by the prong holes). I think it's an 8mm socket. Remove those three screws and the plate is free from the body. Now you'll see the wiring harness. Mine being the older version, it was a rather large cylindrical unit. Separate the two halves by simply pulling them apart, and remove the metal plate housing, setting it aside with the glass.

Here's a picture of what's behing the backing plate/motor housing (note: wiring is removed in picture):




3. Using blue painter's tape or other protective material, mask the painted door area below the mirror to prevent any marring during the next step. You may want to do the same to the back of the mirror flag, too, if it's dangling.

4. Take a sharpie and mark a color code near each of the pins on the female barrel connector that remains in the mirror housing. You will need to know what goes where when you reassemble. Someone had already done this on mine, meaning this job had been done on my car at least once in the preceding 25 years.

5. Remove each of the pins from the female harness. There are special tools to do this, but I used a very small allen wrench (2 mm or 1/64") that would actually fit snugly inside the hole of the pin. Insert the Allen, then turn it about 1/8 or 1/4 turn while pushing the wire out the back of the harness. This did not require much force in my case, just wiggle it until it goes. Before you remove the last one, make a retainer of some sort ready to prevent the wire from falling into the door. The wires should be wrapped in a sleeve, so there's not much chance of this happening - yet.

Here's what the old style round connector looks like:



6. Use a 4 mm Allen on the mirror base, near the window. It may have a small cap over the allen head. There is a clamping mechanism on this screw. Do not go nuts unscrewing this because the clamping end could fall into the door. Begin loosening the mirror base, but only as loose as is necessary to remove the base from the door. Mine came out with still about 1/3 of the thread remaining before the clamp would've fallen inside the door.

Here's a picture of the allen screw:



7. Get your wire retaining device (clothespin, tape, etc) and attach it to the wiring sleeve where it exits the door (under the base you are currently removing). Affix it and then feed the wires out the bottom of the mirror base. Your entire mirror assembly should now be liberated from the car.

Here's a picture of the wiring still in the base (note: the sleeve is gone on this one and someone had cut/spliced the wires, just showing how the wires feed thru):




8. You will now see the bottom of the neck-fastening hollow bolt that has worked itself free. If yours is only loose and not detached, you'll only need to tighten it. Mine was the 12-point variety. I had a T-55 socket on hand and it was a perfect fit. I bought this at Autozone a while back for my Jeep and it was only a couple bucks at the time. If your mirror is in two pieces, and not just loose, you'll need to hold the flag in one hand and using the T-55 on a 3/8" ratchet, apply enough force to preload the hefty spring and engage the threads.

Here's a picture of the 12-point version of the hollow bolt:




Prior to actually assembling, I removed the bolt and spring, cleaning the threads on the bolt, then trial fit the bolt into the threaded mirror housing to be sure it was not stripped. Mine was fine. My primary concern was now cross-threading. I held everything steady and got it started, then once I felt it was threading properly, continue until I hit the stop. The mirror was now reassembled, tight and still pivoted normally. The hardest parts are now behind you. Barring stripped housing threads, you are now in the clear.

9. The famous "assembly is the reverse of disassembly" line applies here. Feeding the wires back thru was a little tricky, but not bad. Good light and patience are both needed. The pins really should just pop back in the proper receptacles in the barrel harness.

Sorry about the mix of "harvested" pictures, but there were already pix in other threads of the pertinent areas, so I didn't bother with my own.

Hope this helps.

Keywords: Floppy Loose Detached Flag Side Mirror Carrera SC

[unclebilly]

how do you remove the locking collar style? the glass fell out of the driver's mirror on my 964 the other day leaving thr backing plate behind. Fortunately, I do have an 87 Carerra parts car.

[Paulporsche]

I used an Allen wrench to tighten mine. It worked fine. I had to back it off a little so it wasn't so tight that the mirror wouldn't rotate.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Paulporsche

I used an Allen wrench to tighten mine. It worked fine. I had to back it off a little so it wasn't so tight that the mirror wouldn't rotate.

+1 Just use a allen wrench. It works just fine. You have to push hard to compress the spring enough to get the threads to start.

[86 911 Targa]

Thrasher,

To your exemplary instructions, may I add a suggestion.

A few drops of Loctite on the bolt (part #7), permanently
cured this issue on several of our 911's.

Thanks,

Gerry

[Pazuzu]

Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!

I was askeered when I walked up to my car last week and noticed that the flag mirror was completely loose. It took a bit of searching with the proper terms, but I finally found this thread, which made the R&R trivial! No problems fixing it right up, and any watch-out type moments were already warned about in this write up.

So, it needs to be bumped!

[Thrasher]

Cool - glad to hear it Mike... I had forgotten I even wrote this up! Gerry's call about a drop of loctite on the hollow bolt is a good call. Mine is still holding tight, but wish I'd done that (if I didn't - can't recall for sure).

Maybe post a reply with the keywords / search terms that you used prior to finding this thread to help the others in the future.

[RoninLB]

FLAG MIRROR----- "Do not try to remove glass thru bottom hole..
electric mirror motor replace - Help - Pelican Parts Technical BBS

The mirror is held in place by four clips to the motor frame.
Using a thin putty knife/scraper slide it in behind the
mirror to pry the mirror off. Be careful of the mirror heating
element sandwiched between glass and the mirror glass. Once the
mirror is out, there will be 3 screws holding the metal/rubber/servo
part to the flag part of the mirror, unscrew those and seperate the
electrical connector and it comes right out. also, I brought the
tools from performance part. You need it to take the mirror off the
car without resorting to cutting and splicing the wires."

Flag Style Mirror Disassembly - Pelican Parts Technical BBS
Flag Mirror Help - Pelican Parts Technical BBS
Flag Mirror wiring gurus needed...HELP - Pelican Parts Technical BBS
SC Flag Mirror Vibration - Pelican Parts Technical BBS
My mirror flops - Pelican Parts Technical BBS
Loose Mirror Tech Article - Pelican Parts Technical BBS
Loose Mirror Tech Article

MIRROR ELEC dia ----
Mirror Wiring - Pelican Parts Technical BBS
Flag Mirror heat element vs. Joystick vs. Electricity - Pelican Parts Technical BBS

MIRROR ELEC PIN TOOL -----
Mirror removal...cable? - Pelican Parts Technical BBS

[SCWDP911]

so is this in the Ultimate How to thread yet?

[Series900]

The down and dirty repair precludes all the great work you documented, try using a large flat screwdriver with the wire loom to one side, push and turn, the threads will engage, and the mirror flag to base will reunite!

[MrScott]

In my case the top threads the bolt in part group #7 engages must have been stripped -- no matter how hard I pressed it wouldn't catch. I ended up removing one of the two washers (shown in #7) for extra reach. It's held up fine over the last few months but ideally I'd have filed the existing washers down or found shorter replacements.

[porschenut]

Originally Posted by Series900

The down and dirty repair precludes all the great work you documented, try using a large flat screwdriver with the wire loom to one side, push and turn, the threads will engage, and the mirror flag to base will reunite!

I've done it that way on 3 different cars. Far easier than taking the mirror apart, and the entire repair from beginning to end takes less than 60 seconds. None of the mirrors have come loose again.

[FIG]

So basically there is no way of getting to the mirror motor etc without destroying the rubber casing and or drilling out the rivits?
I was hoping to avoid coughing up $328 for a newbie

[1982911SCTarga]

I just went through this with the driver's side mirror on my SC cabriolet and this article was extremely helpful. The small allen wrench trick is the schizzle for releasing the wiring pins from the plastic connector, thus making the entire mirror assembly easy to remove, and to correctly re-assemble and set the spring tension on the bench.

Brian

[hydrocrust]

Excellent thread! Really appreciate the detailed directions and advice. Thank you!
Here are a few more things that I found helpful.
(1) Hollow bolt in my 82 SC was tightened with a 3/8 inch hex (allen) pattern (on a ratchet), which seemed to fit perfectly. Two stores were out of the 55 Torx/star wrench, but the 3/8 hex was just right.
(2) When feeding wires back through the bolt, bundled 4 of 6 with electrical tape, passed through bolt, then untaped to pull them to the side, passed the last two through individually. With the pin receptacles creating a wide bundle, could not fit all 6 through at once. I also tried feeding them through one by one using waxed cord (pulling them through the bolt), but they kept getting caught - the tape helped to smooth the upsets on the little receptacles.
(3) Took advantage of having connector apart to clean both pins and receptacles with electrical cleaner, tighten the receptacles a bit to assure good fit with the pins.
(4) Feeding wires back through mirror was helped by another pair of hands to hold the mostly assembled mirror frame in place. We also cut back a bit of the sheathing surrounding the bundle of wires coming out from the door, gave us more slack on individual wires.
(5) Our host and others (ebay, etc) sell trim prying tool kits with a variety of profiles and angles, were very useful for removing the mirror from the motor/frame.

I think that is all. Thanks, again, to Thrasher and all others who helped with this thread.

[JimHoyland]

I just read through this thread; my PS mirror came undone. As stated above, the spring is a real obstacle to reinstalling the hollow bolt.

To partially overcome this spring force, we compressed the spring in a vice overnight. Then installed it with a lot less force.

It helps a lot to have a helper to hold the mirror while you push down and turn that bolt..

Hope this helps someone

[PDACPA]

Reviving an old thread. I just had to fix mine and thought i would add some comments:

1. Undo the wiring. I tried to not and you cannot push against the spring enough to get it to bite. I pushed the metal connectors through the plastic connector with an allen wrench. Take a few pictures so you can remember how to re-wire. One broke (some corrosion) so make sure you have the replacement connectors. I had some from Radio Shack when adding speakers to a factory housing on my boat (6 position interlocking connector), but with them out of business, cannot help you.

2. Even while on my bench, away from the car, I could not get the spring to compress (had it in the vice for 24 hours) enough to catch the threads. I took one ring of the spring off with my dremel an it worked fine and fit nice and tight.

3. The animated gif is great to see how the ring works that holds the glass, you have to open it so the 4 pins on the circle connect and then use a small flat head to lock them in place (this applies to the 87-89 mirrors).

[mderienzo]

This write up is great. Thanks to all who contributed.

The passenger side mirror came off my SC so I'm doing this now. 12mm star of the hollow bolt is the same size driver as the flywheel bolts.

Are the washers on either side of the spring supposed to have a split in them?

Thanks
Mark

[thundus]

Another thanks for a great thread. If your mirror is just a little loose (threads still engaged), using a large flathead to turn the hollow bolt without removing the wires is a great trick and works fine. And definitely fix it at that point before it gets worse-- while doing the repair, it was pretty obvious that the mirror had come off before, explaining why my car is all original paint except the RF fender and door...

[Quicksilver]

A heads up on the tool to remove the connector wires. You can search for a Molex Pin Extractor.

Easy source is the Janon Pin Extractor (pn#R-5926) from Frys for $11.99.