Side Mirror Refresh - 75 Bus

[sped372]

I bought one and the quality is pretty nice. Only had it a year or so now, though. I swapped the OE threaded portion over since the WW one was a few threads shorter.

Oh honestly . . . good grief. You are exactly the man to offer a speculative analysis of why this is.
Thanking You In Advance,
Colin

Am I missing something here? I'm not sure what you're getting at. I like that the WW mirror is stainless, so I'm hoping it will hold up well over time. I haven't had it long enough to fully form an opinion and don't want to sing its praises yet.

Looking forward to the homebrew BP - we did a Scotch Ale this weekend. I'm hoping the yeast is strong enough to power through a 1.071 SG!

[Hippie]

Vacuum = Closing Speed of Oncoming Truck/ Wind Shear
............ Surface Area of Mirror Glass X Barometric Pressure/Your Current Speed

Place I worked, we had a large chest freezer get sucked straight up out of the back of an F-150 and dumped right on the highway that way. Two lane. Oncoming semi.

[dtrumbo]

I've had the WW stainless mirrors on both of my buses now going on five years. I'm very happy with them.

[Amskeptic]

I bought one and the quality is pretty nice. Only had it a year or so now, though. I swapped the OE threaded portion over since the WW one was a few threads shorter.

Oh honestly . . . good grief. You are exactly the man to offer a speculative analysis of why this is.
Thanking You In Advance,
Colin

Am I missing something here? I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Indeed you are. Apparently the WW manufacturer is attempting to reduce "materials costs" in the name of "greater efficiency", something you are familiar with, yes?
Colin

[sped372]

Indeed you are. Apparently the WW manufacturer is attempting to reduce "materials costs" in the name of "greater efficiency", something you are familiar with, yes?
Colin

Ok, gotcha. It's hard to say, really, without speculating what prompted their design decision. My earlier frustrations came from knowing, without question, that decisions were being made to offload work to another country and offload headaches onto customers.

You can tell WW made a really good effort on the mirror so I don't think it was intentional. If I remember correctly the WW part would have worked, I just preferred to have the extra mm of thread engagement that the original provided since I had it anyway. I hope my memory isn't mixing things up.

But yes, I do take issue with companies that knowingly choose to produce things that will irritate the customer. Things that don't work right out of the box. That's not ok in my book.

[BellePlaine]

The housings are fine so I'm going to reuse the originals. See the VW markings? I like that besides I figure that they've made it this far. I found a place in St. Paul, Alchemy Mirror Resilvering. 651-641-1125, that will resilver the glass for $22.50 a piece.

[Amskeptic]

I found a place in St. Paul, Alchemy Mirror Resilvering. 651-641-1125, that will resilver the glass for $22.50 a piece.

Let me know how that works out. I'd like to rescue both of the outside mirrors and my inside rearview mirror for a resilver. Tricky that, with day/night.
Let us know the quality of their work.
Colin

[z]

BellePlaine, any update available? Interested in learning how things went.
Thanks,
Z

[BellePlaine]

I haven't made it to St. Paul yet to drop off the mirrors at Alchemy. However, I did discover that not all mirrors are made alike, even though they might be stock. I have a good collection and the ones suffering from the worst condition were the ones with a metal vs rubber dished gasket thingy. The metal ones allowed water to pass while the rubber ones didn't. See below.

[VWGirl]

My glass on my mirrors is really bad... and that stands out now that the rest of the bus is like new. I have been waiting to order the mirrors from WW but they have been out of stock for a couple of months now, so I settled on OE bus mirrors from Mexico... they are black plastic frames stamped with VW Audi logos... not what I wanted... but just another option out there.

[Sylvester]

My glass on my mirrors is really bad... and that stands out now that the rest of the bus is like new. I have been waiting to order the mirrors from WW but they have been out of stock for a couple of months now, so I settled on OE bus mirrors from Mexico... they are black plastic frames stamped with VW Audi logos... not what I wanted... but just another option out there.

I removed the mirror from a late model plastic frame and mounted it into my current mirror.

[Amskeptic]

My glass on my mirrors is really bad... and that stands out now that the rest of the bus is like new. I have been waiting to order the mirrors from WW but they have been out of stock for a couple of months now, so I settled on OE bus mirrors from Mexico... they are black plastic frames stamped with VW Audi logos... not what I wanted... but just another option out there.

I removed the mirror from a late model plastic frame and mounted it into my current mirror.

Explain more, Mr. We'reInThe TechnicalForum... how did you remove, how did you install, how does it look?
Colin

[BellePlaine]

Yesterday, I brought my mirrors over to Tom at Alchemy Mirror Resilvering which is located at his home, the upper apartment of a duplex in a quiet St. Paul neighborhood. Tom pointed out a nasty scratch in the glass of one my mirrors which I hadn't noticed before. There is also an area on the glass that looks kind of stained, round spots that he didn't think they would go away with the resilvering. The scratch, he said, would really stand out so now I'm thinking about buying reproductions instead of repairing these ones. There is a minimum cost of $22.50 per mirror plus a $5 hazardous waste fee that he pays to the government. So the cost having both mirrors resilivered would be $55 vs. $60 to buy the SS mirrors from WW. As much as I love the idea of reparing my original parts, I think that I'll go with the WW mirrors.

However, I would invite anyone needing mirror resilvering done to call Tom. I got a good vibe from him. He's also a woodworker and is rebuilding a 84/85 Turbo Diesel Toyota truck.

[static]

I would trust him; that dude is always moving.