remounting and sealing exterior side view mirrors

[encantotom]

hi,

i wanted to make sure my mirrors were not leaking into the coach, so i took them off. be ready for some work...

i made some steel re enforcement brackets to go over the two mounting bolts towards the rear of the coach for the inside wall. 2 inches wides and 6 inches high.

first you clean the rubber butyl old stuff off the coach and the mirrors. use goo gone or 3m adhesive remover. then you have to clean the cleaning stuff with adhesive cleaner. i used 3m.

then because the curve of the coach doesnt exactly match the curve of the mirror, you need to dry fit the mirror and see where the gaps are. we ended up mounting each mirror twice to get it perfect. be more careful than us and you might not have to.

then i used rubber butyl tape and doubled it up where the gaps were larger. then put the mirrors up carefully putting the bolts in without the mirror touching the coach. once the rubber butyl tape touches the coach it sticks really good.

then put the mirror on and put the nuts, washer and lock washers on. in my case for the back two bolts i put the newly made steel bracket on first.

then tighted as much as you can being careful not to break the fiberglass or crunch the inside of the coach as well.

then as the butyl compresses, it oozes out and you trim it off with a plastic putty knife.

then for 3 days or so every day i would slightly tighten up the bolts again until the mirror is as flush as you want and all the butyl is oozed out that you want. then trim off the exess again and you are off.

sounds like a goofy process, but it works.

tom