Improved mirror mounts.

[DJ.]

I'm sure a lot of us are looking around for jobs to do at the moment. Several years ago, I fitted round convex door mirrors to my Seven, they were a big improvement over the originals, but fitting them wasn't straight forward. At the time, I didn't have much time and just wanted to get out and drive, so I knocked up some quick mounts hammered from stainless steel sheet:

They have worked well, are stable and surprisingly light. However, they have proved very difficult to keep clean, have rusted on the surface and I always felt they looked a bit amateurish. As I have time on my hands, I decided to have a go at improving them

[DJ.]

I bought a bar of aluminium alloy from Ebay. It was 30mm x 10mm x 500mm for a quite reasonable £10.50 delivered. I had a design in mind, and initially thought I would weld the pieces together. I cut out the blanks with hacksaw, and angle grinder. The most difficult part was beveling the ends of the arms.

Once I had the pieces in my hands, I realised my chances of clamping and welding the pieces in exactly the right place without any cock ups weren't good! I decided I would have to bolt them together first to make welding easier. Here is a photo of the rough formed parts:

and also bolted together after a bit more shaping:

[DJ.]

It was at this stage that I chickened out and decided not to weld the parts together
The bolts were holding the pieces together very securely, and it just didn't seem worth taking the chance of ruining them, although a really nice tig weld would have looked nicer.

To mount the mirrors on the end of the arms, I needed to tap a thread for the steel ball mounts. They have a very coarse thread, and after some head scratching, googling and counting threads per inch, I decided this must be 1/4 UNC. £4.45 delivered, and a few days wait and I had my first cut tap, drilled the holes and tapped the threads and the mounts fitted OK

Next came quite a lot of smoothing, shaping and polishing. I tried to make them a little lighter and look at least a little bit aerodynamic. I considered drilling lightening holes, but decided trying to clean those would be a nightmare.

Here is a photo of the polished parts:

And here assembled:

This is the finished mount with mirror attached:

[b33fy]

Nicely crafted, lovely Job Duncan. I prefer the ‘engineered’ look with the cap bolts. Not sure welding would add much to the bracket..

[DJ.]

Thanks Mike

[Matth93]

They’ve come out really well Duncan and I agree bolted together looks good I don’t think they need welding

[Rickyrjb]

Those look great, another job ticked off the list.
I am starting to look for things to do on mine now..

[nelmo]

Shiny! I particularly like the inlay (?) in the main arm - great detail.

[greenwoo]

looks just the job!


however

I'm sure a lot of us are looking around for jobs to do at the moment

i wrote a 'to do' list 3 wks ago and according to my ready reckoning if lockdown lasts til end of July I MIGHT just about get towards the tail end of that list!

[Wingco]

Very nice Duncan, agree with the others that bolting them together looks a lot better. They look very sturdy great job.