Backdating Mirrors - a "no weld" approach

SpyderMike · 08-04-2019, 01:33 PM

I went the easy route for the time being as I was doing the entire backdate conversion myself and I have absolutely no experience welding. Anyway, I was asked to provide more details, so here goes.

After removing the existing mirrors on my 1985, and decided on the early smaller chrome mirrors and bought the Porsche ones. I spent considerable time trying to find a best fit location to minimize the exposure of the existing holes so that my ABS adapter piece would be minimized. I also had to take into account the access to the nuts holding the mirrors on the inside. Due to the fact that one hole is basically a notch of the existing hole, I ended up putting a simple doubler in to bridge the metal and make the mirros attachment more secure. I used a long small bit to get started and align the interior and exterior holes. It wasn't easy, but it worked. Then I used a thin 1/16" sheet of ABS that I had laying around, cut it about 1/8" larger than the mirror base gasket, heated it with a heat gun and formed it into a slightly tighter curve than the door profile. This became sandwhiched and spread out as the mirror was tighened.

It works out pretty nice...noticeable from a few feet away, but it fades away as you move back. The nice thing is that it can be taken back to stock if so desired. On the inside door holes I just covered them up with foil duct tape for the time being.