Recently, after finishing a four-year ground up restoration, I was left with one thing to do before vehicle inspection: Outside Door Mirrors. Well I had to ask myself, after all that work do I really want to drill the doors for mirrors? After stripping and sanding and spraying and sanding and spraying (you get the picture) to get the whole car as flat and straight as possible, did I really want to drill holes in the doors? I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, but I remembered a picture of Kelvin Dietz’s 510 and his BMW mirrors for his 510.

That got me to thinking BMW MIRRORS. They’re up off the side of the door and attach to the door window frame and no drilling. cool! So off I went to the local junkyard, picked up a pair for $10! I grabbed a second pair for good measure. Make sure you get the gaskets, bolts and the inside plastic covers. The covers help to cover the mounting plate from the inside that makes for a cleaner looking job.

Now how was I going to attach these mirror to the car? I could see that a mounting plate of some sort would have to be constructed, but how I attach it? Well first of all, if I would have thought of this before painting I could have just welded a plate in place. Since my 510 had already been painted and the weather stripping and window sash were in, other means were in order. I decided to use aluminum because it’s easy to work with and easy to get. I picked up two 6 x 6 x 1/8 inch plates for the mounts.

First things first, I removed the outer chrome molding on each door in order to start some initial measurements. After some quick measurements and a trip to my band saw I now have two plates to work with. (see figure 1 for a starting point for your mounting brackets.)

From the pictures below you can see that the plates are attached to the very bottom edge of the door window frame, and that the bottom part of the plate is pop riveted in place. The plate’s lower edge actually sits 1/2” down into the door. What’s that holding it in place? Well because the doors were already painted I didn’t want to do any welding for obvious reasons, so I used....are you ready?.... "Loctite Weld" Cold Weld Bonding Compound as an alternative to welding. I know what your thinking, but I can assure you this stuff is as strong and durable as it gets (next to welding). And if you have ever used it before you’ll know its strengths. I once used it to reform a missing bolt hole ear on the bottom front left side of a SSS head and it held for years.

Next, pre-fit the plate to the door and make any final adjustments. Once this is completed, pre-fit the plate to the frame. Drill two holes at the bottom for the rivets. Grind a good size bevel on both sides of each plate edge so that you’ll get a good amount of compound on it. Mix up a batch of the compound and spread it on all the plate’s mating edges. (Take care not to over do the amount of compound on the outside of the door as it may become visible at the outer edge of the mirrors mount and it may even create an uneven mounting surface.) Set the plate onto the door and with a pop rivet gun ready in hand snap in two rivets holding the plate securely in place. Remember to work with only one plate at a time and be sure to remove any grease and ruff up all surfaces that will be held by the compound.

I found that after riveting the plate in place I had to do a bit of pulling on the plate to get it lined up with the doors upper frame. You could rivet the plate in place before applying compound to pre-adjust everything then simply drill out the rivets. Let the compound setup for at least twenty-four hours before drilling holes for attaching the mirror.

The next step is to modify the outer belt molding. First, it will need to be trimmed at the area where the plate now sits by first removing the rubber window wiper and it’s retaining strip at the area in relation to the mirrors mount. The top of the chrome strip that interferes with the mirrors mounting plate will have to be ground back for clearance. I found that I had to grind and attach the chrome strip several times before I got it to fit properly. I used a die grinder and simply ground at the fold where the chrome strip and the inside side strips are formed. This will cut through the fold and allow the inside strip to be pulled away. Then you can start trimming back at the top for appropriate clearance. Once this job is completed the chrome strip can be put back in place.

Next up is drilling the holes to be used to attach the mirror to the mounting bracket. Simply take the rubber gasket for the mirror and set it up to the plate and door frame the way you want the mirror to sit. (Make sure that the gasket will cover up the compound on the door window frame.) Mark the plate through the two mounting holes in the gasket and drill. (You’ll have to trim off that piece of rubber that’s at the bottom of the mirror gasket otherwise it won’t fit.) Once the holes have been drilled, attaching the mirrors is the smiling phase because you immediately know you like it.

I found that the bolts used to hold the mirror onto the mounting plate had to be replaced with beveled flat head Philips bolts in order to get the inside plastic trim piece to fit and still be able to get the window up. To get the bolt heads height down, I simply ran a countersink on the inside portion of the holes. The plastic trim pieces were then attached using Velcro. I’m sure other means to hold these pieces in place are available, I just took the easy route.