anyone using "modern" door mirrors that mount to the door not the hinge? looking for pictures to see the look i like. thanks!

 

no one? i have searched but reulted in no information on style installed.

 

Hey Gwilkers,
Good luck with your mirrors - I don't really want to recommend anything about mirrors as our's look fine but they are worthless. Nice to look at and totally nonfunctional is where we are at. I'm curious to watch this thread to see what you come up with. Our's are small circle mirrors mounted to the door but once things start vibrating they move at will & are pointless.

I'll see if I can get my son to send down pics from college - so you can know what not to do. We've also got several of those big elephant ear "california style" mirrors but I can't bring myself to mount them on our nice pretty truck. Still waiting for "Mirror Inspiration".

Ben in Austin


You can't see much & I'm not sure they are "modern style". Our's are mounted to the door - that's about all I can say. I'll see if I can get my son to take a pic today & send it down.

 

Here's a pic of my dad's 50 tudor. It has a door mounted mirror that might help you. Sorry it's not a truck. The previous owner mounted these. We quickly realized the problem when we got it home, and that's why I posted this pic. The wing windows cannot open with this arrangement. So be warned if you don't have an air conditioner.

 

Oh come on Gwilkers . . . don't you want to have some hinge pin fun? Its an easy thing to do. Two simple steps.What could be simpler. What could possibly go wrong?

Seriously though the effort is worth it. The hinge pin mirrors do look nice and are functional.

 

Here is a truck I scored off the net to look at the mirrors. Not to say I like it but they would work.

 

I also think everyone should experience the joys of hinge pin removal . Really it is not that hard as long as you have time, ambition,a torch,drill,lots of penetrating oil and a really,really ,really BFH .

 

There aren't going to be a lot of examples of it I'm afraid, maybe a couple hot-rodded trucks, but on anything not heavily modified it looks very out of place. The mirrors on these things have one hell of a style you never see anywhere else, it's a bit like changing the grille to a modern one, or putting a new bed on it, one little thing completely removes the vintage truck feel in my opinion. So it tends to only happen with heavily modified trucks that are hot rods and not vintage trucks so to speak.


To put it in contrast, mirrors on my '56:



Some newer mirrors:
(This one was made into a crew cab and had a newer bed fitted with older fenders.



This one was on a Bronco chassis, looks like they used the Bronco mirrors on it as well.


One with an S-10 bed


To each their own, build it how you want it and don't look back, but for me I went from having some extreme ideas to really wanting to keep the '50s feel pretty quick. The character of these trucks is what looks vintage about them, once you start swapping key elements out, it completely changes the character and feel of the truck. There are many things I love from many different trucks/cars over the eras, but mixing old with new is tricky business. I was going to put some louvers on my truck, built them and everything, then realized they looked like they where from the 60s, not the 50s, and it was completely changing the feel of the whole truck.


You'll notice that often with even very extremely modified trucks, they keep it looking quite original. This one has gull doors and yet has original mirrors:



But remember, it's your truck. Do what you want with it, always. If you find a pair of mirrors you really love on it, then by all means put them on and enjoy them. It's just been my experience that over time you fall more in love with how it looked originally than how they look modified. The '50s has a very unique style, and little things effect it greatly. In a way think about a really well dressed woman, often you can't put your finger on it all or why it all works together, but if she wore a $5000 fitted dress, had a team of make up artists and hair designers, had the swagger and everything else, the whole look, the whole "feel" would completely change if she wore a pair of old sneakers. Nothing wrong with old sneakers, they just don't often go together with a classic look, there are looks that work with it though.

Hence why you often only see the mirrors changed out on heavily modified trucks. All of those examples that I came across where all heavily modified, Usually they've been chopped as well, and the look works, but it's not a vintage truck look then, it's a hot rod look. To each their own, build what you love, but that's why there aren't too many pictures showing newer mirrors on these old trucks, the original mirrors have such style to them, they scream the best of the '50s.

 

mirrors ? what are those? Put a "peep" mirror on top the door, and hated it. I shaved off the old mirrors and filled the hole. Now i run No mirrors. 6000 miles since. These old trucks have good visibility, we sit up nice and tall. I just turn my head and look. And drive faster than everyone else. haha

 

Might be careful with that though, last I checked it was illegal to not have a driver side mirror. Just a ticket, but still.

 

I really like the stock units. Unfortunately, most trucks I see with mirrors taken off of modern vehcles just look wrong. The first thing I think of is that the owner went "cheap" and tried to cut corners. So, I wonder to myself, where else did they scrimp or take short cuts? Brakes? Engine? Steering linkage?

So, with saying that, I hope that you find some fantastic looking mirrors to prove me wrong. Good luck, Jag

PS: I'm kind of partial to 55 Fairlane mirrors:

 

Attaching a file to this thread is not easy. Here is what I have regarding door mirrors.

MobileMe Gallery

 

These mirrors were on my truck when I purchased it. They're fairly cheap after market mirrors that are screwed onto the doors with sheet metal screws. I don't really like them and plan to replace them with stock hinge mirrors when I put things back together. (I've already had the fun of removing the hinge pins.)

 

Welcome to the club. It seems to almost be a right of passage with these trucks. I've said this before, but the only thing like it that I can compare it to is removing a master link pin from a bulldozer track. Only we were using a 16 lb hammer for that as compared to a 5 lb hammer for the door hinge.

I suggested a reproduction mirror that looks like the original but actually clamps to the top and bottom of the original hinge pin a while back. I just wish somebody smarter than me could figure that out.