RS mirrors - how to open them?

[stevenrankin]

I am laughing at the difference between mirrors made in at least pre 84 versus new generation. The older mirrors were much different in the way this bolt was held in place. The new mirrors are obviously a choice made some time ago to make them cheaper to make without the customer noticing until the bolt pushes out of the plastic doo hickey. A few cents per mirror must add up in time to justify the change in design.

Honestly, on my RS I went with the extended mirrors. It was nice to dodge the dodge pickups rather than have them tailgate me. St.

 

[melville]

Indeed, I need to be wearing slim-fit gear to see more than my elbows on the RS. With the Aerostich jacket I'm just seeing Cordura and Gore-Tex.

The usual solution to things approaching from behind is to ride fast enough that nothing is catching up.

 

[FELAW]

That plastic piece is a dumbass design. Facing the same problem, I managed to pry the mirrors apart and siliconed the plastic piece in place and installed the mirrors backs onto the bike before I put the mirror front rims and glass on. I put a thin layer of black silicone the edges to keep things together, no problems since. In the good old days one of the aftermarket vendors made mirror extenders which put the mirrors out about 4 inches with similar connectors, balls and nuts, for both ends. They worked great in helping to see past your elbows when rear viewing.

 

[88bmwjeff]

I've run into a few lower quality BMW parts for my 88 R100 RT over the years. I purchased a new instrument cluster housing about ten years ago. The original one had glass lens and metal screw inserts. The replacement has plastic lens and no metal screw inserts. You have to grease up the screws when assembling otherwise the screw heads can break off (DAMHIK). FYI, the BMW part is NLA, but there is a good aftermarket part being made.

On one hand, I'm glad BMW is still providing some parts for our bikes; however, I wonder if it would be better to stop providing parts rather than provide cheaper replacements that don't work as well. It seems as though the replacement RT/RS mirrors have fallen into that category.

 

[ezwicky]

Boys, I think I got it. I'll know as soon as I try again. Letting the adhesive dry til tomorrow.

 

[ezwicky]

A recap of what I had to do. So far just did the left-hand mirror. Norm at EME has a "good" right-hand one he's going to send me. Hopefully the cheap plastic cup will keep the threaded swivel bolt secure long enough for me to mount the mirror to the base. One thing that should help is enlarging the hex-shaped hole in the base and then using a regular M6 nut to draw the bolt through.

1) gently prise apart the "keeper" from the rest of the mirror body, but not all the way. Just enough to raise it a bit to get the glass out. Sort-of hinged at the other side.

2) push the swivel bolt into the mirror-body hole so the threaded bit sticks out. push the cheap ineffective plastic cup back into the hole so it will secure the threaded swivel bolt. glue it down with emblem adhesive (3M).

3) close the mirror back up, but it will not "latch". just falls back open again. I had to use emblem adhesive to keep it closed.

4) slightly enlarge the hex-shaped hole in the mirror base (supposed to be 6mm but seems slightly smaller) so the hex-shaped part of the bolt can go through without putting too much inward pressure on the cheap ineffective plastic cup inside.

5) pull the threaded bolt farther into the base by using an M6 nut to draw it in. remove the nut and add the spring and then secure with the M6 jam nut.