The stock mirrors on my 76 f-150 are all screwed up.

They have 4 holes mounting to the door, 2 up high and 2 down low. On the lower holes, the rivet thing or whatever it is, threaded insert maybe? has pulled right through the door skin.

I need to put in new bolts but I was thinking at first of using bolts and washers... But then I thought, what if something hits the mirror? Then won't that just ruin my door sheet metal? Like if I hit a tree or something. Or should the mirror just fold over when that happens?

I was wondering, aftermarket mirrors have plastic inserts, should I maybe do something similar so that the plastic would break if the mirror hit something?

For example, what if I used nylon bolts to secure the mirror to the door? Then they would snap if the mirror was hit by something.

I also am missing the mirror itself on the passenger side, where can I find this part? Anyone know a good source? I have the bracket but the mirror is gone, along with the piece that mounts the mirror to the bracket.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, this is a conundrum that is holding me back!

 

My mirrors are held on with bolts, nuts and large washers, seems fine - but I haven't hit any trees lately...

For the mirror head, most parts stores carry them. But the aftermarket ones are cheap and often shake on the highway. I got OEM mirror heads off a '88 F150 and installed them onto my stock brackets. Fit good, no shakes and look good.

Marty

 

Any type of plastic bolt that was strong enough to securely hold the mirrors on at speeds above 60 miles per hour would do the same damage that a steel bolt would do if you hit something with your mirror. Heres what to do. Remove the door panel and install a bolt and back it up with a self locking nut from the inside of you door. The inserts that was originally installed in the door will get rusty after a while and when you try removing the bolts they will just twist out, when this happens just replace them with a bolt and a self locking nut and forget about it. And BTW stay away from the trees and eliminate the problem

Michelle
Chelle's 56 Hauler

 

Just use stainless steel self tapping screws (available at a place that sells fasteners)
Put some di-electric grease on them to make sure they don't corrode

 

Exactly what they are supposed to do in that situation. Have you ever tried using a hack saw inside the doors?

They are also designed so if you hit something, or someone with the mirrors, they will rip out and do less damage to the door, or the things you hit, causeing less property damage etc, as well as ease of instalation at the factory, making happier factory workers.

You can get these at some hardware stores, and some body shops, if you want the factory styled threaded inserts.

You can try automotive paint stores too. I bought a pint of paint from one, and noticed they had a full line of trim and other auto fasteners there as well.

 

81-F-150-Explorer]Exactly what they are supposed to do in that situation. Have you ever tried using a hack saw inside the doors?

[B]They were installed to make installing or removing the mirrors easy without having to remove the door panels. There is nothing in the design of the insert that would suggest that this was the intent. The simple fact is that once they rust and the resistance of the bolt being removed from the insert is greater than the resistance between the insert and the sheet metal they will start turning. As far as using a hack saw to remove them, why would you want to remove then before started turning on you? Second if I should want to remove one of them I would simply use a pair of vice grips on the back side and twist them out.[/B]

They are also designed so if you hit something, or someone with the mirrors, they will rip out and do less damage to the door, or the things you hit, causing less property damage etc, as well as ease of instalation at the factory, making happier factory workers.

Again not exactly true. The mirrors have a swing lock feature, meaning that when the mirror is extended it locks in place, if you hit something it will swing backward and inward causing no damage. If however you have the West coast type mirrors that do not have the swing lock and you hit something you will definitely do some serious damage to your door regardless of whether you have the inserts or use bolts backed by a nut. In such a scenario the force or energy would be from the front pushing the mirror to the rear, as the mirror pushes rearward the trailing arm of the mirror has no choice but to push inward, doing the damage. You could set up a test with two doors. One using the inserts and one using bolts and nuts and with the same rearward pressure applied at the same exact angle the two doors would cave with near identical damage.

You can get these at some hardware stores, and somebody shops, if you want the factory styled threaded inserts.

You can try automotive paint stores too. I bought a pint of paint from one, and noticed they had a full line of trim and other auto fasteners there as well.[/QUOTE]

 

I did say that, I thought. Makes happier factory workers etc..


I think you missed my point here. I meant for the aftermarket Bolts and Nuts you would install. Not the factory inserts. I suppose you can grind the heads off of the bolts or nuts if you needed to.

Swing lock mirrors for the most part will colapse, yes. But it looks like you never have pulled swing lock mirrors off with tree limbs. I have and they tend to pull back and outward, not inward. If they were bolted on as suggested, I would have had to buy a new door instead of a new mirror. The same can apply with west coast mirrors.

There are scenerios where it's better to have the inserts pull out than to have the outer door skin peel off the door. I have seen doors with damage like that after the fact.

Some of these scenerios are like the pulling one off with a tree limb. Others are where two truck mirrors collide on the road at 50 MPH.

If the mirrors are bolted and strengthened in such a way as to where they will not come off in an accident, there is a potential, especially in the two truck mirrors collide example, to have whole doors ripped off the cabs, instead of the mirrors off the doors.

Also with the west coast mirrors, if you hit a person with them, the inserts are more likely to pull out of the doors leaving the person behind, still causing severe damage to the doors, that's a given, but potentially less damage to the person or object the mirror hit, rather than having the mirrors bolted on, and dragging the person or object several 100 feet etc...

I think we just have a difference of opinion here. It's just down to preference.

I like the inserts, because from my experience it does conciderable less damage to the doors, than if they were bolted on in other manners as listed. And they are designed to pull out, instead of ripping things open like tin cans, as I've seen with other methods.

But it's just my opinion, and advise. Not a personal attack towards anybody, or anyone here. Especially to Ms. Michelle if she feels offended.

 

I, like you could sit here all day and think of far fetched scenarios that would apply to the point I wanted to make, but that is not the case. the reason and only reason the inserts were installed in the first place were as you so apply put it, was to make installation for factory workers easier, period. The engineers did not sit around and think well if the guy driving hit a tree limb and it hung in the mirror? Give me a break. I have a 78 Bronco and living in Colorado I have done some serious four wheeling. I long ago replaced the inserts with bolts when I had my Bronco repainted. In all my four wheeling I have had my mirrors folded a few times but never have I had any door damage. I have also been through some heavily wooded areas in the past but was prudent enough to take caution to make sure I was not impaled by low hanging limbs. Which by the way I think any one else on this board would do.

I think we just have a difference of opinion here. It's just down to preference.

[COLOR=Green]I totally agree, a difference in opinion.[/COLOR]

But it's just my opinion, and advise. Not a personal attack towards anybody, or anyone here. Especially to Ms. Michelle if she feels offended.

[B]I think anyone would have taken it personally when you quoted me and then made the response you did.

My quote:
The inserts that was originally installed in the door will get rusty after a while and when you try removing the bolts they will just twist out

Your response:
Exactly what they are supposed to do in that situation. Have you ever tried using a hack saw inside the doors?

How would you have reacted? Sounds a little flaming to me. I sometimes see things on this board and other boards that I visit that I do not totally agree with, but I make a point to never to be facetious, about ones comments or to make fallacious, or negetive comments. It is not my intent to go around stepping on peoples toes.

A little back ground on me. I am a 61 year old female. I hold a degree in Mechanical engineering that I acquired in the mid 60s when it was totally unheard of for a woman to be in that field. I spent 24 years in the Air Force as a developmental engineer. After I retried I worked for Lockheed Martin as an engineer. I hold over 20 patents and I have personally built a number of show winning cars and trucks. I have written numerous tech articles, some for this very site back in the 90s when this site was very young. I am sure they are still on file here. Many have been published by National car clubs like the Falcon Club of America, and the Cougar Club. I have a website www.michellesfords.com where you can see many of my cars and several of my tech articles that I did for the Falcon Club.

Michelle
Chelle's 56 Hauler

 

I'm Impressed ....for one

Great site and Life

My wife's name is Michelle and she helped with torquing down my 429 intake once.

She said she "Love's Torque"

 

Thats awesome, just had to say it.

For the record, my drivers side mirror rusted off the mounting ball... It used to point at the tire at anything above 15mph, and vibrate uncontrollably to boot.

Fixed it with jbweld putty... the other side's on its last leg also, but I'll wait...

~Nate

 

Do you know what the intention of the engineers was? Did you ask them or something? Maybe the inserts were for both convenience AND safety? I'm not a mechanical engineer but I'm currently an engineering student in college, and to me that sounds like exactly the kind of safety concern that an engineer would address. I'm not saying you're wrong, I would just like to know where you get such a certainty on that point.

Anyway, it's not that important, it sounds to me like this thread is becoming more an issue of who is right and who is wrong. I don't really care about who is more knowledgeable or whatever I just thought it would be a simple question to answer.

 

Well they do have to conform to FMVSS #111, which pertains to rear view mirrors. The mirror has to be mounted in such a way as to give the most rear view possible from the drivers seat and the mounting hardware must not contribute to vibration that can hender the view in the mirror. So some thought had to go into them, as they are mounting hardware. Not nessecerily for the reasons I have mentioned before however.

I have no idea what the engineers were thinking at the time. I'm not going to pretend to either.

I agree. As long as you saw the the limbs first. Not everyone can forsee every possible scenerio.

Well, the smiley face and the green grin, was supposed to tell you that my comments were light hearted and more of a tease, and it was definately not meant to be flaming at all. I do see your point about how it could be misconstruded as facetious, looking back on it now. I apologise for the confusion. Actually I had the same exact thoughts about you. Why is she flaming me?

I'll try and reword my comment in more of the way it was intended...

Isn't that what they are supposed to do in that situation, if they get rusty? I would rather them twist out than try and remove some rusted nuts and bolts with a hack saw that a previous owner used to mount them later on.

I also should mention that I have had problems with my mental faculties in the last two years because of what Doctors believe as a stroke. But they are not 100% sure what happened. Blood clot is one of the possibilities they mentioned. My wife also left me for another man, cause she could not handle the change in me from my incident. So she say's anyway.

So it's possible that this could also be the reasons behind the confusion, and why my statements are not coming across as I intended. You are not the first person to complain to me about this very thing either.

That is quite impressive indeed. I know how women are/were treated in the automotive or any industry as such. Probably the very reason why you feel so obligated to defend yourself from a perceived attack. I don't blame you at all honestly.


A little background on me. My experience includes 2 years of High School Auto Shop, which included a crash course of automotive wiring troubleshooting. And being friends with the people that worked at the local Ford dealer here for 15 years. I had full run of their service departments library, and learned a lot of stuff from them.


There is no comparison between your background and mine. (Please note the smiley.)


I still stand behind what I said about the inserts. they are better than bolts in my opinion.

 

OK, I wish I hadn't asked.... this is turning into too much of an argument.

You guys go ahead and fight amongst yourselves and whoever wins, that's whose answer I'll listen to

Just kidding... But seriously... I think I'm going to just get aftermarket mirrors and not worry about mounting hardware, because they come with it.

 

Thank you Gentlemen for your comments and indeed I do accept your apologies Mr. 81 F-150, and for that matter I apologize for any over reaction I had. You are right when I started out in this field of work I had to prove my self on a daily basis. I had to claw my way to the top, most people considered me window dressing and dismissed anything I had to say. Over a period of time I did prove my self and gained the respect of my peers.

Hillbore, I also apologize to you if you think I have talked down to you, that was never my intent either. I only wanted to answer your question as honestly as humanly possible. As for me adding credentials, that is something I have never done before, but I have been called a dumb woman before, and for once I thought I would let people know that indeed I have paid my dues, and I can get down in the dirt with the best of them when it comes to mechanics and building cars.

All apologizes are accepted and I will not make any more public comments about this matter.

Michelle
Chelle's 56 Hauler

 

Well... maybe you didn't talk down to me, maybe I was just being too sensitive. I dunno, it's hard to tell what someone's tone is when they post online :S Even if you did want to talk down to me, why should that bother me? Dangit I got offended for no reason...

I feel kind of ashamed now that I complained about your post, normally I wouldn't call attention to things like that, I usually try to be thick-skinned because it's too easy to mistakenly take offense.

So anyways, thanks for your advice, as well as the advice of others who have posted, I feel embarassed that I let myself get carried into discussing something OTHER than the actual subject at hand, which is the proper method of attaching mirrors.

If anyone is still willing to answer a question after I made a fool of myself... I do have another question, Has anyone seen a mirror head in one of the major chains (Kragen / Checker, Autozone, Pep Boys, Carquest, Etc.) that fits onto the stock mirror mounting bar? I am thinking of fixing up my existing bars and mounting them with regular bolts because the aftermarket mirrors I found are expensive, about $50 for a pair. One of my mirrors is missing and I have just the bar on that side so I would need a mirror head that has the hardware to clamp onto the round bar.