I turned my side view mirrior in once to often on my 97, can anyone tell me if their is some kind of retaining clip in there or does the whole mirrior need to be replaced
:crazy:

 

Call your dealer and if they don't replace it, call another...and so on until you find a dealer that knows this is a known problem that was fixed by GM. The dealer will be able to get this covered by GM and it should be painted and installed for you.

 

The whole mirror has to be replaced.

 

To restore to original, the mirror assembly will have to be replaced. The existing retained cannot be repaired but [and this is a long-afterthought for me] I bet that a person could enact the same sort of design correction that GM should with a repair that:
1. temporarily compressed the tension spring.
2. cross-drilled a hole near the top of the mounting post.
3. used a cotter pin or similar through the cross-drilled hole to serve as the mirror anchor.
In a big hurry a couple of years ago I used 2X tape and remain amazed by the adhesion, not pretty [from a concept perspective] but rather effective.

 

The retaining clip on my mirror also went out. You can do a repair on it if you want to save the money and don't mind a jury rig. First remove the mirror, it will pull out of the housing. You can then put a sheet metal screw through the
mirror housing into the lower section of the housing. It works fine and isn't noticable.

Regards,
Mike
98 Convert, Torch Red

 

If the spring loaded pivot action in your outside mirror has broken, here might be a fix so you won’t have to buy a new mirror. Rotate the mirror all the way in towards the car so you can get your fingers behind the outer edge and just pull until you have the mirror in your hand only attached by the two heater wires. With all the ripping, cracking and popping sounds, you’ll swear you ruined everything, but the mirror is a snap fit assembly and someone else snapped it together before you got it, and you can snap it back together just like you took it apart.

You can now see the retainer clip, that has popped off on my mirror, and spring. There is no chance of putting the spring and clip back in place unless you remove the whole assembly from the door and have some type of spring compressor similar to a valve spring compressor. That spring is similar in strength to a valve spring and in my case has pushed so hard on the retainer clip that the little tabs on the clip have sheared off the aluminum in front of them until the clip was pushed off the end of the shaft.

My solution was to hold the housing in place and drill through the mirror housing and through the base, providing a place to insert a stainless screw to hold it solid. Install a small hose clamp around the electrical cable to be clamped on top of the shaft. Some pieces of double sided tape in the pivot point between the base, that bolts to the door, and the mirror housing also helps prevent any movement. This procedure eliminates the pivoting action, but you don’t have to buy a new mirror either. Place the mirror housing back on the shaft and press it down against the tape, slide the clamp onto the end of the shaft that protrudes inside the housing. Press the clamp down tight against the housing and tighten, then insert & tighten the screw in the hole you drilled. Leave the spring and clip on the wire, there is plenty of room for them.

Then reassemble the mirror. Look over the back of the mirror to see the five pivot points that you have to snap back together. The center pivot and top and left side adjustment pivots will the ones you need to line up first. Just spread your hand out over the surface of the mirror and snap it back together.
If you snap the pivot points back together one by one, you will have two crunch sounds, these are the ones with the silver wire retainers on the end. They are threaded and attached to the electric motor for adjusting the mirror. Along with the two crunch sounds, you should get the "big" snap when the center pivot goes back into place. You'll need to have one hand on the mirror and the other hand on the outside (front) of the housing and press together. You basically get the big snap and the two crunches all together in one terrible sound. That will probably leave the two small position stabilizers, one on the bottom and one on the inside next to the door. Rotate the mirror towards the door until it starts to "snap" and won't go any farther, then push forward on the inside portion of the mirror (next the door) and you should get a small "pop" when that stabilizer goes into place. Rotate it down and do the same thing for the bottom stabilizer.
If you get the center pivot and the two crunch sound connections together, it will work just fine, but it may not be quite as solid as it will be with all five connections made.
If all else fails, stop by when if you're in the neighborhood and we can snap everything back into place.

 

If you have the GMPP on your 97 they will replace the mirror. The passenger side mirror on my 97 came off last April and GMPP picked up the cost of replacing it. Total bill for mirror and refinishing was $274.
Bill

 

Hi all,
Hey Electric Blue, sorry to hear about your mirror disaster. I can't even begin to tell you how mad I was when I found out what a brilliant design :U the mirror assembly was on our 97's. WHY did they even put a "breakaway" :rolleyes: mirror on the car? Anyway, before I start to totally go off :cuss with "praise" :rolleyes: for the designer of this "thing", let me just tell you I took my drill and drove a screw right through the housing into the base. My wife said "Oh my god, honey....your damaging the car" I told her that it cannot be fixed and a new mirror was $200 bucks. She grabbed the drill outta my hand and ripped into it herself. I think the screw thing works pretty good, but the pin through the post above the tension washer is another good idea. I thought of soldering the washer to the pin on my "good" miiror so it wouldn't happen to the other one. There is no way to compress the spring in that little space inside the mirror. Believe me, I tried a million times and broke my knuckles trying. :mad

Steve

 

My 97's passenger side view mirror retaining clip also popped off, leaving the mirror flopping like a limp mackerel. I actually repaired the unit and reattached the clip. Since I have the shop manual I found it remarkably easy to remove the unit for servicing. After removing the mirror glass (see above posts...it does snap out but you'll be thinking it'll break...I did but nope!) I tried to use my valve spring compressor to no avail (couldn't get the right angle). Then I tried a different approach. I cleaned the slot that holds the snap ring and made sure the ring tabs were straight. I then took a long bolt and placed it through a washer, then a large nut (I can't remember the size but it was just big enough to go over the "stem" and deep enough to pass the slot). I put the bolt down through the stem (where the wiring goes) and then added some washers and a nut at the bottom. I then aligned the clip and spring and slowly tightened and "pressed" the clip back in it's place. It did "snap" in place! That was early last summer and there have been no problems since.





[Modified by SebringBill, 11:13 PM 1/9/2002]

 

No fuss. 3M double sticky molding tape will hold it tight. 160 MPH and it held solid.

:flag

 

Hi all,
Hey SebringBill, do you realize how much money you could make by providing this service to pissed off vette owners around the country(world)? I'll be first in line of those pissed off vette owners for this stupid, unneccessary problem! Just think, you could charge $20 bucks a shot to do this, save tons of people some serious money($200 ripoff by Chevy!), and put one of the largest automobile manufacturers to shame(which they should be shameful of that PATHETIC design of a mirror). I am going to try this on my spare broken mirror I got back from the dealer a while back(they probably keep the broken one's they replace, fix them and then rip us off again with the same one's!) Thanks for the great idea. I was told by the service manager at my local Chevy dealer that there is no way to fix this, you just have to replace it. Gee, I wonder why they don't just fix these things for a couple bucks. Maybe it's because they know that us vette owners will HAVE to buy a new $200 dollar one every time this happens. :mad
Steve

 

I had the same problem on my ex-97, cost me to replace the whole mirror.
It seems stupid for them to install the break-away type,because no matter
what happen , you have to replace the whole thing, kind of stupid :cuss

 

thanks for the tips guys but found out it was covered under the extended warranty. dumb me :smash: my brillant wife says call up the plan & check she was right again thanks all