68 rearview mirror restoration

[Rotmilky]

Pretty cool, thanks for taking the time to post this up. My '68's mirror looks like yours on the front, the back is intact, but I haven't poked at it at all. I'm OK with a little patina since the rest of my '68's interior is original and has a certain aged look to it.

The day/night switch on mine is floppy, doesn't work....any chance you could try dissecting the original mirror into it's pieces and post up some pics of what's in there?

If they are dissassemble-able (is that a word) I may take mine apart and try to fix the day/night switch.

I'm going to disassemble it at some point. I tried very briefly yesterday and think that you need to somehow unglue the mirror and push it out the front. My plastic is so brittle that I didn't want to break it any more than necessary. If I can find a good solid back to act as a mold, then I'll go ahead and dissect the rest of the mirror. Until then, I'm trying to keep mine as solid as possible. When I do disassemble it, I'll send you a PM on how it fits together.

--Von

[mikael]

Great work Von, thanks for posting.

I just read your thread over on Pelican, excellent info aswell and I will follow it closely as I will be going down the same road shortly... The thread for reference: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...love-rust.html

[Rotmilky]

The mirror arm that is an exact match in shape (not arm finish) is an early Mercedes mirror.

Aha! I think I now remember who mentioned the similarity of the two mirrors. I believe it was in a thread about 6 months back that you mentioned that--and started me down this road. Can't find the thread, but great comment.

Do you happen to know the model or approximate years for the Mercedes mirrors? I'm wondering if they aren't available as a new part. Strip the rubber off and you might have a good replacement for a heavily pitted post. I'd be willing to give it a try if I can find the part.

Edit: I found one on the fleabay for about $20. I searched for '68 mercedes mirrors and picked one that looked like it had the correct part. Should be in later this week. Going to try to soda blast the post to see how hard it is to remove the rubbarized coating.

I've never seen a Porsche 67 mirror to compare to the 68 mirror

I'm no expert on the '67, but I *think* that the non-S models came with the chrome mirror. If the diameter of the ball is the same as the '68, then it might be nice looking to put the '67 chrome mirror on there. I have heard the 'S-series in 67 came in black plastic backing like the '68. I suppose those were the days when Plastic was still considered a high end part instead of junk like today.

The mirror body itself is still different as is the BMW in both shape and the pebbling texture in the plastic. I've never seen a Porsche 67 mirror to compare to the 68 mirror I have but, the 68 texture is completely different from the 69 -on mirrors.

Yea, texture is different between the BMW and Porsche mirrors. There's also some text on the back of the BMW mirror. For those interested, here's a comparison between the texture and the small text box on the BMW mirror
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/tgRCgeBB8XQYp-NN8Vgb_w?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-HzZglqHwHgg/TkxxQ6kaowI/AAAAAAAAAT8/a4p7g40hANg/s400/IMG_1259.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/107685368595078804853/1106Porsche911OriginalState?authuser=0&feat=embedw ebsite">11 06 Porsche 911 original state</a></td></tr></table>
Thanks for the information that the '69 texture doesn't match the '68. I was going to try to procure a '69 mirror to see if I could get the correct texture. Saves me some time. I wonder who made the back, though. The mirror post is shared with Mercedes, the clipping mechanism with both Mercedes and BMW. I'd hazard to guess that the plastic texture is shared with another German car from that era. I suppose I'll keep moving forward with my plans to try to recast a new plastic back in the meantime.

What you have to be careful of with the BMW mirrors is the base. They are slightly smaller than the 68 Porsche/Mercedes and I think the width of the spring loaded pin might be slightly narrower.

I wondered about the possibility of using the entire BMW mirror instead of replacing the post. I thought the spring loaded clipping mechanism looked to be similar size, although as I look at this photo I'm thinking I might need to measure with calipers to know for sure.
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/fYqLdU1xYBt8iWp-9mSjpQ?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-fK3hxs-tuV0/TkxxES_AWuI/AAAAAAAAAU4/5GxemJogbYg/s400/IMG_1251.JPG" height="286" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/107685368595078804853/1106Porsche911OriginalState?authuser=0&feat=embedw ebsite">11 06 Porsche 911 original state</a></td></tr></table>

The base of the Porsche part is certainly wider. I thought this was to cover the mounting screws. Here's a photo comparison of the two. On the BMW case, the red arrows show the exposed mount holes. However, the green arrow points to the locating pin on the Porsche mount that correlates nicely to the divot in both the BMW and Porsche post base.
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/eGHuLa29crdg3QKxcrm9Nw?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-wxiiLmV5G8I/TkxxWQocbZI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/m0Kcj4snWPY/s400/IMG_1269.JPG" height="286" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/107685368595078804853/1106Porsche911OriginalState?authuser=0&feat=embedw ebsite">11 06 Porsche 911 original state</a></td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/pGSqbPB9PXFZablrUM9Opw?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-3gM1IJYhNNE/TkxxV0f0c9I/AAAAAAAAAUM/bzmth1rCz08/s400/IMG_1268.JPG" height="286" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/107685368595078804853/1106Porsche911OriginalState?authuser=0&feat=embedw ebsite">11 06 Porsche 911 original state</a></td></tr></table>

I didn't try snapping the BMW mirror in because I don't think I could get the unmounted base back off. As far as I could tell, it looked like it'd work with the downside of exposed screw heads. I briefly looked at the BMW base online and it seems like the screws of that would be exposed as well. <Shrug> I suppose after all of this, I don't know how well the BMW mirror would work in the Porsche mount. I do believe both the BMW mount and mirror are NOS still, so maybe just get the BMW base to be safe?

[mshaver51]

How is it that so many of us have adopted '68 rust buckets?

Have faith, at least, in knowing that you are not alone.

[raspy2point2]

1968 911s are good cars and If you have to put up with alittle rust then so be it. 6 months ago I bought a '68 911L ROW Sunroof coupe and yes it does have a some rust I will fix. The SWB cars are much harder to find for sale than the LWB cars. The SWB cars are so pure-thats why I got one.Chris

[Rotmilky]

How is it that so many of us have adopted '68 rust buckets?

Have faith, at least, in knowing that you are not alone.

In my case, I happen to have an affinity for the unusual and/or difficult-to-find. I just love a good quest. In the case of the '68, there's so many one-year-only parts that it's like a bundle of quests all rolled up in a rustbucket of a moneyhole.

[Fritter]

SWB cars and especially 68's are quirky, fun cars with some hard to find pieces, but usually you can find some type of used part.

My car had a 67 and down dash top in it, I sold that and found a 2 piece '68 only dash pretty easily.

Cornpanzer found me a '68 only sport seat for it a few years back.

Gonna put the side reflectors back on? That is one of the hallmarks of a '68. Do you have the 7mm spacers for the rear wheels?

Once you get the car done and dialed in, they are a joy to drive. Mine sure is!

[mshaver51]

i realize that i've never attached photos in this forum before, so my training is inadequate. if you'll send me your e-mail address, i'll shoot you photos of the '68 mirror i was preparing to take to ski roundtop next month.

thanks.

ms

[Rotmilky]

i realize that i've never attached photos in this forum before, so my training is inadequate. if you'll send me your e-mail address, i'll shoot you photos of the '68 mirror i was preparing to take to ski roundtop next month.

thanks.

ms

As it turns out, it's a bit of a pain to post photos. They have to get approved by a moderator before they get posted up. I'm finding that takes on average about 12-24 hours to get approval. Currently I've got a post to this thread with some photos of texture differences that I wrote at noon yesterday. It's still not up. If you actually tried to post a photo, it'd take nigh on a week to get anything accomplished with it.

I'll send you a PM with my email.

[mshaver51]

another learning opportunity for me.

maybe this is part of the reason that people post links here and the ads in ebay or the bird.

thank you. you should have the photos by now.

no matter what, good luck.