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Last Changed 2/16/2011 |
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The antennas mounted on the mirrors of Red Rover are used for the CB
radio and the AM/FM radio. The antennas receive a lot of
force from wind when traveling down the road and also from trees
that cities often fail to trim properly. In 2005 we had to repair the left antenna mount as the casting, that the antenna mounts in, broke. At the time, we kludged a fix by using a steel angle piece that was riveted to the casting. The fix lasted for over 5 years but it broke. We found that the casting used to hold the main mirror is the same for the right and left mirror. The casting is just turned upside down for the other side. We decided to swap the two castings to have an unbroken mounting point. |
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Here you can see the casting break where the antenna would mount. Also is the metal bracket we had used as a fix before. |
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To remove the mirror assembly from the arms, you start with two Torx screws
located under push in caps. These screws can often be tough to remove.
Be sure to use the proper size Torx bit to prevent stripping the
screwhead.
These allow the forward plastic mirror housing to be removed. To make the reinstallation easier, we marked each clamp that mounts the mirror assembly to the arm assembly. We label the clamps and added a line from the clamp to the arm shaft. |
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This is the casting that holds the main mirror and is attached to the mirror bracket with two clamps. | |
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This casting holds the convex lower mirror and has one mirror bracket clamp. | |
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We had to remove the mirror heads. This is accomplished by
first tilting the mirror outward at the top using the electric
mirror controls. We did not realize this until after the mirrors had been removed from the arms. We just plugged in the mirror connection while holding the mirror assembly, and used the mirror tilt switches. With the top of the mirror tilted outward, an upward force will disengage the tabs on the mirror head and the mounting plate seen in this photo. |
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With the mirror head out, four screws are removed to release the casting from the plastic mirror housing. We could disconnect the heater wires from the main mirror head. We could not release the lower convex mirror so we cut the heater wires to the convex mirror and spiced them when we swapped the main castings. |
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Here is the mirror assembly ready to be mounted. The antenna mount is securely mounted in the casting hole. | |
Over all, the swapping of the two mirror castings wasn't that bad compared to trying to find a steel angle piece that I could use as a repair again. And significantly cheaper than a replacement mirror assembly. |
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Disclaimer: The information in this site is a collection of data we derived from the vendors and from our personal experiences. This information is meant as a learning guide for you to make your own decisions Best practices and code should always be followed. The recommendations we make are from our personal experiences and we do not receive any compensation for those recommendations. |