I have now collected a few Lucas interior rear view mirrors for my Mk2 project. They are all let down by bad chrome on the stem. Does anyone know how they come apart? Valvechatter has a nice description of how the guts work but it does not say how the glass comes out to get to the guts. Does the surround hold it in place or is there glue? Do I have to gently bend back the lip on the aluminum (sorry..... aluminium) frame?
It's WAY too cold in the garage to work on anything that I can't bring into my basement workshop.
Thanks in advance....

 

I have one but no clue how they come apart without causing damage. Try rubbing the stem with aluminium foil. It helps.

I believe they were machined and sealed in order to keep the pivot ball from loosening.

sort of the same process with the wing mirrors and the "bike" mirrors for driver's door.

 

Yes ~ the new reproductions are not entirely accurate. (rivet pattern, printing etc.)

I suspect that the glass is lightly crimped in the aluminium. Hopefully someone will confirm.

A good chromium plater can replate the stem in place as long as you are not too concerned about the back of the ball that you can't see.

I had this issue with replating the chrome knobs on my air flap controls on my S Type. The knobs are crimped onto one end of each Bowden cable and the air flap shaft connectors & grubscrew attach to a crimped collet/nipple onto the other. Cannot be dismantled without cutting the cable. My platers put the entire cables in PVC tubes sealed at both ends with silicon sealer with just the chrome knob accurately protruding & ran them through the process. The knobs had light corrosion under the chrome & it was starting to flake off.

Result ~ nice newly chromed knobs.

Pre replating.






Where there is a will there is a way.

 

Glyn,
if you turn the knobs clockwise over the cable, they will come off. The strands of the cable have a clockwise orientation.

I removed two like that, but you have to keep the cable end steady as near the knob as possible. To put them back on the cable, same thing, push the knob onto the cable as you rotate the knob clockwise. Both removal and refit are clockwise and require a good amount of force until they loosen.

the two S type knobs I salvaged went to the 1984 XJ-6 which had similar knobs but made in black plastic, used for the dimmer rheostat and the cig lighter. Now they are chromed S type knobs.

 

Nah! I can assure you the knobs on my cables were not removeable (or intended to be). They were crimped & silver soldered. I had 8 cables. Cut one up to see assembly. If you managed to twist one off the solder had let go. (you obviously achieved this with some force ~ had the cables been cut to achieve this (removal) or did you hold them at the airflap end & twist which would cause the inner cable strands to twist & unwind or vice versa?) i.e. how did you hold the inner cable to twist off the knobs "as close to the knob as possible"? There is no exposed inner cable without cutting or crushing the outer shroud. I believe you would have to damage the cable you are removing the knobs from which defeats the purpose/object.

Removal and attachment both clockwise makes no sense if the knob is "threading" itself onto the cable strand twist.

Nevertheless the mirror stem can be chromed in place if needed with some effort.

 

I have a dozen vent knobs on cables in my boxes of many things. If I have one which is damaged I will try and dismantle it over the weekend and post the results.

I know that during my rebuild I tried unsuccessfully to remove the knobs and cables from my wooden plate. The chrome was good but I want to re lacquer the backing plate. I was able to loosen them but had to leave the cables and knobs in place with just enough room to get behind the knobs to rubdown and lacquer the wood. Obviously you can remove the cables from the wood as I have a box full of them but I never found out how.

 

in the car, you first disconnect the cable trunion from the plastic underdash vent.
2 cable adjustment nuts to undo if I remember.

then you need a very thin spanner to insert between the back of the knob and the chromed finisher to undo the nut over the chromed finisher. Then you can pull the knob and cable through the wood and finisher.

can't remember if the nut is 13 or 15 mm.

 

I would be interested to see if you could remove the knob without damaging the cable and putting it back on the same cable again successfully. I even took my cut one to Peter Posniak ~ my chrome man & he agreed they were not intended to be dismantled & came up with the plan to chrome the knob in situ attached to the inner cable. Peter has restored a fair number of pretty exotic classics.


The rotary knob ends have thin nuts that trap the chrome facing to the wooden centre piece IIRC ~ the slider hot cold escutcheon also holds some of this. The cables then go through the parcel shelf facing under the carpets to the air direction vent metal frame holes (19) where they once again attach with 2 thin nuts. They then drive the plastic direction vents via (18).











Parcel shelf ~ you can see the bumps in the carpet where the cables run.



Buggered cable ends that attach to metal vent frames.(some of my rejects).



Chrome bubbling on knobs & air direction vent metal frames that cables attach to.





The final set of cables I used were off of a 420 & in the best condition.

We always seem to do it & go OT. This thread was supposed to be about rechroming of the OP's mirror stem.

 

No worries about going OT! I appreciate the input and always learn something from you guys.
Valvechatter show how the ball is released once the glass is out of the way. The silvering on my mirrors is not great so I wouldn't mind having them re-silvered at the same time the stem is out for chrome. Broken glass probably won't silver well, though.

 

Thanks for being understanding. I'll try & do some research on how the mirror comes apart. My mirror was perfect so did not require attention.

 

While the Lucas mirror had various mountings the mirror itself is constructed in the same fashion. A Lucas 608 mirror is a Lucas 608 mirror and was used over many years from late 50's/early 60's.

The glass is indeed lightly crimped into the aluminium body. Comments from a number of people say one should start by gently uncrimping it from one corner and along the bottom edge. (less crimped bottom than top apparently). A number of tools are recommended from dentists tools to a small screwdriver with masking tape on the tip, to plastic trim removal tools. The last two would be my advice. Apparently as you make progress dental floss can help pop the glass out.

I'll keep looking but I have searched both Jaguar & Aston Martin that used them.

Some findings thusfar:






E Type FHC







I've omitted the interior shots as you have them from Valvechatter. Lin's blog is excellent.

 

Thanks, Glyn. That is very helpful. I'll see how it goes.

 

Rob/Cass,
Been browsing my pics and for future reference thought I should clarify vent cable removal & installation so if you ever wish to strip again you know how to take the centre shelf air vent controls apart to free the wood for lacquering. I had forgotten that the centre chrome piece on the wood was threaded & that the slider escutcheon actually holds everything together with it's two studs & nuts.

You actually screw in or unscrew the whole cable with it free at the vent end obviously & then lock or unlock it in place with the thin nut behind the chrome knob. Likewise you attach or detach the vent end of the cable with the two slim nuts into or out of the metal vent frame bracket hole as seen above & below. The end of cable collet/nipple is connected to the plastic vent shaft by the collar with a screw in it.

Those thin lock nuts require a slim bicycle type spanner to access at control knob end.

Cable:








Threaded centre chrome piece.




Reference original car vent & cable attachment.




Slider escutcheon.

 

I think I figured that out at the time but did not have a spanner thin enough to get behind the knob.

 

too bad, I have a bag full of them flat spanners.

 

To bring some closure...... I took the mirror apart this weekend and it does simply pop out. Couple of small blocks of wood were helpful in gently bending the upper lip up and out of the way and slowly working the glass out of the frame. The glass is off to be re-silvered and the stem and clamp assembly are in the next batch of parts to be re-chrome plated. The aluminum shell polished up very nicely.