Drivers side block off plate
greenteagod
Moderator
Copying from my build thread.
Since the jdm ones are so damn hard to find, I snagged a mirror off a wagon in the junk yard and am converting it.
So I was lucky enough to snag a busted drivers side mirror on the cheap. If you happen to have one, keep hold of it, don't toss me out if the parts that mount to the door are still sound.
So you tear the mirror apart, this took some bending and drilling to get the pins out, eventually it came undone.
Sorry for the blur the iPod wasn't behaving.
Inner piece. I roughed up the hole that is being filled so the epoxy grabs hold better.
Mask it off. If I had another one I might orient the tape differently not sure if that would help. I have a slight indentation where the tape was after filling. Could be filled again, but it's good enough as is for me.
Fill it up with epoxy.
Bam, set! Try not to get so many bubbles, I suck.
Then it's just a matter of shaping it.
Primed.
More shaping
Some Eastwood underhood black. You can still see where the patch is a bit, so I took to the wet sand.
Smoothed it out much more.
Krylon fusion flat black. I think it turned out pretty well.
All right, that was the easy part, now on with the exterior panel. You need to cut all the junk off that held the mirror.
You end up with something like this
Fits in there nicely. And you can see I've started knocking down the excess plastic. This is the only time I really used a power tool, so with some simple hand tools this can be done.
Masked and filled. Time will tell if this epoxy holds up to the elements.
Random thought, with some LEDs and careful paint you could always turn this into some custom plate thing. Like use a decal as a paint mask then peel have if back lit. Who knows.
So much shaping. Still not perfectly flat but close enough. Also, do not use a belt sander for more than a few seconds, at least not with this resin, it heats up fast and remelts. I may try a version with jb weld. See if it holds up any better.
Initial primed, I shaped it a bit more after this. Also I was getting some weird cracking on the paint. Might have been from spraying while it was too cold out. I've since primed it more and painted it. Will snap pics of that later.
Ended up putting some rustoleum bumper/trim paint on it. We'll see how that works out. I might smooth it out with some 2000 grit and see how it pleases me.
Since the jdm ones are so damn hard to find, I snagged a mirror off a wagon in the junk yard and am converting it.
So I was lucky enough to snag a busted drivers side mirror on the cheap. If you happen to have one, keep hold of it, don't toss me out if the parts that mount to the door are still sound.
So you tear the mirror apart, this took some bending and drilling to get the pins out, eventually it came undone.
Sorry for the blur the iPod wasn't behaving.
Inner piece. I roughed up the hole that is being filled so the epoxy grabs hold better.
Mask it off. If I had another one I might orient the tape differently not sure if that would help. I have a slight indentation where the tape was after filling. Could be filled again, but it's good enough as is for me.
Fill it up with epoxy.
Bam, set! Try not to get so many bubbles, I suck.
Then it's just a matter of shaping it.
Primed.
More shaping
Some Eastwood underhood black. You can still see where the patch is a bit, so I took to the wet sand.
Smoothed it out much more.
Krylon fusion flat black. I think it turned out pretty well.
All right, that was the easy part, now on with the exterior panel. You need to cut all the junk off that held the mirror.
You end up with something like this
Fits in there nicely. And you can see I've started knocking down the excess plastic. This is the only time I really used a power tool, so with some simple hand tools this can be done.
Masked and filled. Time will tell if this epoxy holds up to the elements.
Random thought, with some LEDs and careful paint you could always turn this into some custom plate thing. Like use a decal as a paint mask then peel have if back lit. Who knows.
So much shaping. Still not perfectly flat but close enough. Also, do not use a belt sander for more than a few seconds, at least not with this resin, it heats up fast and remelts. I may try a version with jb weld. See if it holds up any better.
Initial primed, I shaped it a bit more after this. Also I was getting some weird cracking on the paint. Might have been from spraying while it was too cold out. I've since primed it more and painted it. Will snap pics of that later.
Ended up putting some rustoleum bumper/trim paint on it. We'll see how that works out. I might smooth it out with some 2000 grit and see how it pleases me.
Comments
It has to be asked. Why?
Fender mirrors? It'd look pretty lame to have both sets, IMHO.
Exactly so. I tried positioning the fender mirror on the drivers side, what I saw out of it was the back of the door mirror =D
So yeah, this is for doing fender mirrors. I'd love some OEM honda ones, but the knock offs are cheap to find, so I'll sport those for a bit. But finding a drivers side block off plate is near as impossible as finding the mirrors themselves. I do see the occasional ask for a drivers side block off plate for people wanting to do the fender mirrors.
Enough civics came without passenger side mirrors here in the states that those can still be had for not a horrible amount. My plan is to make another one specifically for making a mold from it to do some reproduction parts. I might do some of these on a one off basis for people, but they are fairly labor intensive so it would be hard to keep costs reasonable. A mold though. Yeah that's prep time getting it set up but once it is then you're golden. Especially since after the modifications this part is very simple as far as the details on it.
That said, finally did the remaining work on it so here's the rest of the dump from my site.
All right, picked up some rustoleum bumper and trim paint, it worked really well. Applied 4 coats, then wet sanded at 1500 and 2000 grit. Then used some Meguiar's Swirl X to polish it up.
Shiny!!!
And the interior bit, I did it in flat black because I don't need reflective surfaces in there if I can avoid them.
So there it is,next project would be to see if I can make one and develop a mold off of that. If I can then I will be sure to make more of these.
Except for real world testing, seeing how it holds up to the elements, I consider this one project complete.