What I wish I hadn't tried to do to my car today...

[hogweed]

Thought I’d follow on from the popular What I did/didn't… threads with an account of what happened when I tried to fix a long-standing problem with my car.


I’ve had her coming up for 11 years now – by far the longest I’ve ever owned a car. Generally love her, really, but had all the standard faults – slave cylinder x 3, wet ECU, wet boot, etc etc etc.


About 8 or 9 years ago, I think, after having my driver’s door mirror smashed twice, I decided to fit powerfolds. Or, more exactly, I bought some 2nd-hand, took them up to a Midlands Nano Meet (why Nano…?) and stood around asking stupid questions and generally looking pathetic till two splendid gentlemen (Ben & Bernard, IIRC) fitted them for me. Sadly no cross-body loom, so I had to do that myself much later, which was a real laugh.


When I had them both working, they were fine for a while, then the passenger one started to jerk and make unpleasant noises when closing. I put up with it for a long time, then discovered that somebody here had made replacement gears – bingo, I thought, and bought a couple of sets.


As the mirror still mostly worked (apart from needing the occasional bash with a water bottle to make it close), I endlessly put off fitting them.


But it’s gradually got worse and worse, and… today was the day.


Following the excellent how-to guide here, I managed to dismantle the gubbins OK. Only real difficulty was getting the chrome plastic cover off… I managed to get the first clip to release OK, but couldn’t for the life of me see what sort of angle to apply force to release the cover, as the other clip is hidden. Naturally – as warned in the guide – it broke, despite maybe ½ an hour of careful manipulation.


On dismantling the motor, I noticed that the gears looked fine – still, what do I know, I thought. Covered the new ones in grease, and reassembled – only to remember too late that the wires from the other half of the mirror had to go through a hole in the stanchion first. Note to self: take as many photos as the sainted Arctic, when doing ANYTHING.


Took it all apart again, routed the wires through, reassembled. This sounds like it only took 20 minutes for the whole job, but it was half the afternoon. Anyway, I connected it to the car temporarily to see if it worked OK before putting everything back together etc – I’m not THAT stupid – and of course it didn’t.


If anything, it was worse than before – grinding, graunching, half closing. I was absolutely certain I’d put the gears in correctly (pretty sure there’s only one way they’ll go). I thought hard about whether it made sense to take it all apart again, but no – I was VERY careful about reassembly; the gears covered in grease, just slid into place… no undue pressure needed to close the motor lid and put the screws back in – definitely nothing out of place. Besides, it’s a pretty simple mechanism really – assuming you mark the casings etc so it lines up properly when reassembled, there really isn't that much you can do wrong. So there wasn’t anything I could do differently.


So I decided to call it a day and just put it all back on, forget it. But even this is an “interesting” job – the rubber gasket thing (bought new when I got the mirrors) was sodden and disintegrating, which made the job a bit more difficult; and what’s really annoying is that the wires aren’t really long enough to bring the plugs and sockets together as you fit the mirror to the door.


Also, the larger plug and socket seem to lack any kind of positive location – push them together (using your 3rd hand, and one of your feet) as hard as you like; look sideways at them; they’re apart again. Still, I got it on eventually.


Thinking that the Gods just might smile on me, I tried the button again – mirror did half a turn, then ground to a halt. Endless messing about (and manual encouragement) got it fully open – I decided to leave it that way permanently, disconnecting the little plug to stop me being tempted to try it in the future and jamming it again.


I’ve always found replacing door cards a source of endless amusement, and today’s exercise didn’t disappoint. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the poppers or whatever you call them into their little holes. Endless wrenching the card about succeeded only in dislodging the locking button from the lock, and dropping it down inside the door.


I don’t know what other people do, but I’ve never been able to remove and replace the door membrane thingy without destroying it, and today wasn’t much of an exception. I also had no idea what I was looking for, or how to replace it, but was desperate. Happily, I spotted the button on its long pin just lying there at the bottom of the door. Something in the back of my mind thought it might locate in a little green thing – must have seen a picture somewhere, and amazingly, it did, and I got it back up in place again.


I’m not exaggerating when I say it took me ¾ of an hour to get the door card back on again – endless lifting it off, several deep breaths, locating along the top, locking pin in place, wires through the switch hole etc, move it down into place, and… nothing would line up. Then suddenly it just did, and all the poppers snapped easily back into place.


It’s funny… I’ve always considered myself pretty handy, fixing everything from showers to floors to dishwashers to computers which others considered beyond repair, and all still fine years later… but every time I touch this car, I regret it.


Well, I still have ONE working mirror – just have to always park the car with the driver’s side facing out.


Feel free to contribute. Or laugh