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Tired of crumbly rear view mirror? Not superstitious? Mirror swap concept.


socorob

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I have 3 mirrors for the Z and they all have bad silvering around the edges of the glass and the plastic housings are near the end of their life's. So I followed the resilvering article on classic z car to remove the glass from my worst one. So I took it apart, and it came apart very easy. I thought why not get a mirror with a similar style mount and swap the mechanisms over? Off to the pull a part I went, and 1 hour and $7.09 later I had a 2004 Hyundai accent mirror. It was just slightly larger than the Z and had the pivot ball about in the same place. 2 cars down was a 2004 Kia something or other that had the exact same mirror so I took a rock and busted the glass out of it to see if the mechanisms were similar. Close enough! Now when I got home the glass didn't come out of the housing of the Hyundai mirror in 5 minutes like the Z's did. I fought with it for over 1.5 hours with a few of each style of plastic silverware we had in the house and a few plastic scrapers from the garage. No luck and I finally chipped the glass. At that point I just wanted to see if my proof of concept would work. I got out the hammer and broke the glass so i could get it out. I put the Z pivot ball into the Hyundai housing and it works fine. All you have to do is get a little longer mounting screw for the plate that holds the pivot ball in since the Z has a slightly larger pivot ball. Next time I get a chance I will go back to the upullit yard and get 2. Take the one with the best housing and break the mirror out of it and take a dremel, hacksaw, or other instrument of destruction you may have around and cut the 2nd housing apart to get the glass out in 1 piece. Snap good glass into good housing and you have a mirror from this century with the little flip up switch on the bottom.

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I've been searching for a candidate for this for some time... Never bothered to look at Hyundai though.

 

I'm working on restoring the sun visors, and all the hardware that the sun visors share with the mirror (I've even added a HomeLink module). A fresh mirror is the last piece of the puzzle, so I'll be watching this with great interest!

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 2 cars down was a 2004 Kia something or other that had the exact same mirror so I took a rock and busted the glass out of it to see if the mechanisms were similar. Close enough!

 

This made me laugh hysterically. Fiance had to see what the hell I did now, and told me that woulda been something I woulda done. Sorry for the derail, but very cool idea.

Edited by NgoZ
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I finally got a chance to go to the local upullit yard. There were 4 Hyundais there that were early 2000 models with this mirror in them so I grabbed all 4. The yard only charged me $10 for the 4 mirrors. Got home and took the on e with the worst looking housing and carefully cut it with a hacksaw near one end to break the plastic off. It took awhile because I was going very slowly but if you nick the glass or scratch the silver on the back of the mirror you would ruin it. Snapped the end of the plastic off and slid the glass out. Took the best looking housing and smashed the mirror into little pieces I could pull out. Put the Z arm into the Hyundai housing. It was VERY hard to get the glass in . Since the mirror is wider in the middle I slid it in starting at the middle going to the left. You should really use gloves and safety glasses. I was pushing and squeezing so hard I was expecting it to break at any second but that glass is tough. You'll see if you try to break the glass out of the one how hard it actually is. What ended up working for me was running very hot water onto the back of the housing. It seemed to have softened the plastic slightly. Try not to get water into the housing as there are metal parts in there. You dont want to create another spot that the Datsun wouldl like to turn to rust. Sliding it as hard as I possibly could to one side. Sort of squeeze the glass in enough so it starts to bow the plastic out and go between it. I then took a towel and folded it in half and put it on a piece of wood. I laid the mirror in it upside down and pushed very hard all around it. That got it started going in. Then I just had to snap it into the groove in a few spots after that.

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Edited by socorob
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  • 1 year later...

Just got around to doing this today, replacing a universal chrome hotrod style mirror that the PO of my recently purchased 73' had installed.

 

I used a few different techniques than Socorob, so I figured I'd offer my advice to anyone thinking of doing this in the future.

 

First thing, I used a dremel to cut most of the way through the housing and then used a soldering iron to melt/cut the last bit. This saved me the stress of possibly gouging the delicate silvering, and yet I was able to press right up to the glass. Separating the halves was very easy this way, though I'd only recommend doing this somewhere well ventilated.

 

Second change was how I installed the mirror into the housing. Socorob is absolutely correct when he said this is hard to do. What worked for me was pressing the mirror in by hand, just to get at least one of the long sides into the groove. I then placed the assembly mirror side down on a soft towel on my garage floor. At this point, I took another towel, folded it repeatedly until I had a nice inch thick pillow.

 

...here's where things got a little nerve-racking! Using the 'pillow' I had made, I gave the housing 3 or 4 firm, but cushioned taps with a mallet. Presto! Mirror was snapped into place in under a minute, no water necessary.

 

Thanks again Socorob for doing all the leg work figuring this out. I walked into the JY today with zero tools and walked out ten minutes later with two mirrors.

 

Total cost was $14 :).

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  • 3 months later...

Did this tonight I got a crappy 240Z mirror to pull the ball attachment and two Hyundai Accent mirror off eBay.   Used the soldering iron to remove the good mirror and harvested parts off the two other mirrors.  

 

I used the same screw with slight bend in the ball holder.  

 

A couple of notes on reassembly, I started sprayed a little silicone spray on the edges of the mirror base and started the mirror from one side and slid it mostly in.  The Hyundai mirror base will flex to open of you push it in the center of the back.  A few towels under the mirror on the floor, and put a little body weight on it, and the rest of mirror popped right in.  Very simple.  

 

Thanks for doing the leg work to find this.  Significant improvement in stability of the mirror and much better rear view.  

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Anyone try a "glue on to the glass" style mirror rather than fighting with the Z mounting system?

 

I've always been tempted to buy one of these do-all aftermarket mirrors that has the home link/temp/Compass/Reverse camera screen just to see if I can make it work. They are likely wider than our mirrors which would mean some visor customizing as well. Once you get going, one thing leads to another.....

 

About all I've done to improve my mirror is to "alter" the arm so the mirror is positioned about 1" higher, and about 1" closer to the glass too. I found the windshield to be narrow as it is, and having the mirror in the stock vertical position was really is in the way of my vision to the right.

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I recently did this as well, and for popping the glass back into the new housing I used a heat gun to make the housing more pliable.  My goal was to heat it up slightly more than if I had sat it out in the sun on a hot summer day.  I made sure to keep the heat gun moving and checked the temperature with my hand frequently.  The little bit I heated it up made all the difference as it slid in relatively easily.  

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I wish I had read the first post more thoroughly before I retrieved a mirror from the local u-pull-it.

 

I had assumed that you were salvaging the mirror and putting it in the old plastic frame. When I got home, I found the mirror 10mm wider and 4mm higher. Re-reading your first post, your were salvaging the Z mirror's ball to install in the Hyundai's mirror. Ugh.

 

BTW the mirror for a 1980-81 Sentra is of similar size. The mounting arm is identical to the 240z on top but enters the top of the mirror instead of the backside. If you are only concerned with functionality, simply transfer the retaining springs from you old mirror to the Sentra's and snap it in place.

 

The original design for Datsun was advertised as a safety feature. If your head hit the mirror in a crash, the mirror was designed to pop off. The marketing department hadn't foreseen seat and shoulder belts, but the design was retained even after their introduction.

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