Cobra mirrors

Got a while in the garage today. A bit unexpected, but great to be building again. So I decided to fix the mirrors. I needed to do this so that I could show where the mirrors were for a car cover.

External mirrors

The mirrors come with inappropriate mountings, so after carefully removing the glass, the fixings were removed by unscrewing the mirror body from the ball joint on the fixing.

Mirrors as supplied

Standard fixing replaced with GD arm

This is simply a screw in to the ball joint. The mirror is then replaced and  hey presto, you have a mirror suitable for the Cobra.

First I removed the screen, by undoing the four screws at each side on the stanchions and the centre stay fixing.

Next I applied some masking tape to the outside edges of the stanchions - from the second screw down to below the third screw. Then I marked a centre line for each of the stanchions on the masking tape. The lower screw hole for the mirrors were 160mm up from the stanchion escutcheon, so a mark was made at this point.

Tape marked with centre line and hole positions

I then used some scrap aluminium to protect the chrome on the stanchions, with holes drilled oversize and approximately in the right places in one piece.

Scrap alli held in place with clamps

A 3mm pilot hole was drilled through each stanchion, before opening up to 4.5mm. Each hole was then tapped to take the M5 bolt supplied.

Hands free tapping!

Then the second hole was marked, drilled and tapped in each stanchion. Two M5 screws were then used to fix each mirror to the stanchions. Done!

Both mirrors in place

As my garage is not complete yet, I couldn't shorten the screws that hold the arms or flatten the head of the third screw on each stanchion. These need to be done to avoid damaging the windscreen when the screws are inserted and tightened in to the holes and to allow the mirror arm fitting to sit flush with the stanchion. I will do this when my bench and grinder are in place.

Internal rear view mirror

This is simply clamped to the central windscreen stay.

Here you can see the location bracket of the internal rear view mirror. The black rubber edging is for the IVA.