I've just picked up my new van, a 75 Westie and the door mirror literally fell out yesterday... It seems that the threaded end of the mirror and the nut inside the door are different sizes but neither appears to be damaged or cross threaded...and it was holding on fine when I bought it...apparently there aren't different size threads on the mirrors so I'm baffled...anyone had same prob before?? Thanks
Is the mirror a new one? I've heard that the threaded section isn't really long enough on repros. zed will know.
^whs. I had the same problem and found the cheapers one were not long enough. I phoned vwh who supplied me with them and they sent out some with long thread but they were still a struggle tbh
Yep the threads are about 5 to 10mm shorter on the new ones than original - the JK ones are for sure as we had to extend the thread on them, once we did this, they fit perfect!
we compared the thread length on the original to the new one - popped the new one in the lathe at work and simply cut the thread longer to match the old thread length (obviously we used thread gauges to ensure we had the correct pitch) and it worked a treat!
On the originals, the metal tapered to a smaller dia mirror side, so you could back off the locking nut further, thus exposing enough thread to screw into the door. New ones you're lucky to get a couple of turns into the door and sometimes, like yours, probably clinging on by half a turn. Don't know the answer, they're a bit hit and miss - even expensive stainless steel ones are as badly made, just from better materials. One answer would be drill out half the threads from outer side of the locking nut so it backs off more?
^wts Same problem for me. Got mine reworked at work by adding a couple more threads on the mirror so that the nut went further up the shaft. Then the mirror could bite on the captive nut inside the door.
when Ollie arrived he had no nearside mirror got ours from vw heritage, and despite making a complete ass of myself as I did not understand it moved, fitted fine so also replaced the drivers side.
