Side Mirror Repair - 2004 Honda Accord - USED GLUE!

[Jeff Papineau]

 

NOTE: Every 4 years I have to glue that mirror back on; so I finally replaced the mirror with a new one from Ebay. I have White Pearl paint; it was easy to match it pretty close with a pre-painted mirror, and I just replaced it with a new part finally. Easy. Cheap, maybe $60? Done. No more Epoxy.

Just thought I'd mention that my girlfriend dropped our kayak on the ground, just as we were lifting it off my car (it was wet from hosing it off) and it broke my mirror off the passenger side of the car.

 

It looked pretty bad, she felt really bad and I thought it was going to cost me hundreds to repair it at the dealer, etc.

 

Then I told her don't worry about it, I'll look it up on line and see how to do it myself..

 

Well, reading about, I found that these mirrors are made to break off the car really easy and it doesn't take much (mental note, fold in mirror before moving boat, dry boat first, and don't drink beers first ;-)

 

but it seems this mirror will just glue right back on if it's a clean break. In fact, I used some 5 min epoxy and the mirror is right back on the car, like it never happened!

 

F*ck me, I'm so glad cause we have a trip planned and I wanted to take the car to get it lubed and fill the tires, etc this weekend, don't have time to mess with the mirror, mechanic, etc, etc,

 

On my accord, I just took a screw driver and unscrewed the mirror pod assembly from the plastic mirror mount that hooks onto the door. I'm not sure all the mirrors are like this but mine is, where the mount comes with the replacement mirror, and the pod screws onto that. Those screws are really hard to reach when the mirror is on the car but mine was just hanging by the wire for the power mirror control.. so I unscrewed it.

 

Then I fit the piece that came off to the mirror mount that's bolted to the door. It fit perfectly, no cleanup needed. I grabbed some old glue I had out in the garage, and some RUBBER GLOVES, cause that EPOXY IS NASTY STUFF and you don't want to get it on your hands or body. Put on old clothes because it will ruin shoes and clothes. Masked my door with newspaper and masking tape, and all around where I would have glue, every side of the door around the mirror mount.

 

Mixed up some 5 min epoxy because I knew I wanted it to set as soon as I could apply the glue to both surfaces where the break was in the mirror mount. It took a minute to mix the glue on some old cardboard I could dispose of as soon as I was finished.

 

With a toothpick, I mixed and then applyed glue to both surfaces. It took almost 2 minutes to carefully apply to both surfaces to be glued. As soon as I could, I very carefully fit the pieces back together exactly as I had previously rehearsed without the glue. I got a little on my, and tried to get it off my gloves by wiping newspaper on them. I fit the pieces and pushed HARD. Applying strong pressure I watched that all surfaces were evenly getting pushed together and I waited for about 1-2 minutes in a power pose as I did it. Release.

 

Tada, the mount is securely set. Go watch some TV, or do something different. Take off gloves, Unmask car, and wrap up refuse and dispose of, don't take into the house! Nasty fumes from epoxy is very unhealthy to breath or expose others to.

 

Come back, and the mount is on there very nicely after an hour. Very hard, will continue to harden over-night but we can work with it now. I grabbed a short phillips driver and a driver head from my drill kit. Putting in all screws as I mounted the pod, I hand tightened them as much as possible, then used the driver on the one screw that will take a short driver. The second and third screws are out of reach of a driver (I assume so nobody can steal your mirrors just by loosening 3 screws easy to get to).

 

I used the drill philips head (3/4" long) to again, hand tighten with a driver bit. It would go in most of the way this way but not very tight. I put some long nose pliers (locking) on the driver bit and was able to turn them each another 2 turns after some patient 1/4 turns.. Done.

 

Cost to fix my 2004 Honda Accord Side Mirror after a great day of sport:

$0.00

 

Happy girlfriend, happy guy.

 

After having spent a lot of time working out how much replacement mirrors cost on ebay, etc., and reading all the forums on how to take off my interior door panel, I didn't have to do any of that crap!

 

I only saw a few posts that talk about simply gluing the thing back together. It's on there just as good as it ever was, can't tell it was repaired and it's stronger on the glue joint that it was before it was broken. But I did see one post, about a guy that said his was glued on and lasted another 4 years, and he just saw the car go by recently, driven by the guy he sold it to, a year later and it still had the same mirror attached he sold it with.. ;-)

 

I love epoxy glue.