Hi all, I purchased some "Swan Stem" mirrors from "Bob Drake" for my 1952 Ford F1. These are the kind that have a tab above and below the door hinge. My problem is this, the Door hinge is not a "Half Round" it is oval or "elliptical" how ever you want to describe it. The "Throat" on the stems (Between the tabs) is not deep enough to allow me to install the hinge pin and rotate the stem. Has anyone ran into this problem?
I called Bob Drake and they said no one had ever told them they had a problem. Thanks, John

 

I had the same problem with mine. I ended up filing away on the inner vertical section of the mirror mount and on the aft side of the hinge to get the clearance I needed.

 

Thanks for your reply ! After you ground the chrome off the mirror , what did you finish it with? How much did you have to grind off the hinge? Thanks, John

 

I took most off the mirror bracket. I didn't do anything to finish it as it was up against the hinge. Just took enough off the hinge profile to be able to get the bracket where I needed.

 

I ground the hinge.


A hint for "seeing" with the mirror:


Purchase a larger aftermarket rectangular head to mount in the place of the small round mirror head, big difference. Credit to Bob Jones, I followed his lead. The replacement heads are about $10 in the chain auto parts stores. They are ss.

 

Also be very careful to support the bottom of the "C" bracket when pushing in the pin, or the bracket will break off.

 

Yes, Ross is right. I broke one of mine.

 

What, no pictures? I would like to see this new mirror head. My round ones do really leave a lot to be desired. But, I'll suffer if it means some big ugly, "California style" mirror.

 

I got these for my truck, but they were too small to really see anything.



So, I got these heads for them, and everything is fine. But I have an F4, and I need to see past the flatbed.

 

The closer you can get the mirrors to your eye the larger the field of vision to the rear. You can add a large, round convex stick on mirror to the right mirror to help improve the field of vision. I don't like them on the left as the distort the image too much.

 

I added small ones to both mirrors to eliminate the blind spots.

 

Thanks Joe. My round ones are basically the same as yours. But, the rectangle ones are a bit large for my truck. Something in between might be nice. I'll have to keep an eye out for some.

 

Classic Haulers has 5" round heads, but they're black instead of chrome or stainless. Apparently their picture is incorrect...
1948-52 Ford F-100 MirrHead. Replacement, 4852

C&G has some that might work, but you should probably call them first.

 

Pictures of mirrors. The first picture is a close up of an adapter that I turned out of SS to allow proper adjustment of the mirror. I made the adapters for both mirrors to improve the adjustability. Without the adapters the drivers side mirror could be adjusted but not the passenger side. I did the drivers side so that I could rotate the mirror 90 degrees from the position shown in the pix.

 

That's some nice work Bill