DIY Side Mirror Removal and Painting

kthung

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The paint on my side mirrors was starting to chip so I wanted to paint over them. This is my first time doing any type of automotive painting so please don't be too harsh on the shoddiness of it.

Materials Used:
Philips screwdriver
Flat head screwdriver
10mm socket wrench
Sandpaper
Painter's tape
Dust mask (though an actual paint respirator/mask would be better)
Duplicolor Grey Filler/Primer
Duplicolor Heather Mist Mica
Duplicolor Clear Top Coat

Driver's side:
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Passenger's side:
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Start by removing the door latch. Remove the round plastic cover to expose the screw and unscrew. I haven't figured out how to remove the plastic covers without them snapping off. I think they're just old and brittle. Then slide the latch forward to pull it out.
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Unplug the power lock cable.
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To remove the door latch, swing the small plastic piece out and pull the metal bar up out of the hole.
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Now remove the door handle. Flip up the black tab in the middle and remove the screw.
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Pull up from the rear to pull it out of the slot. Remove the three cables for the windows and power mirrors.
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To remove the door panel, use a flat head screwdriver to pop out the piece covering the mirror bolts. There are two clips.
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Pop out this round thing.
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Unclip the door panel on the left bottom and right side then pull the whole panel straight up. Twist the courtesy light bulb and pull out to completely remove the door panel.
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Next unplug the mirror and detach this clip. There's adhesive around the clip so you need to work your flat screwdriver around the clip to loosen it first then wiggle it out.
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There are three 10mm nuts to be removed to pull off the mirror. Make sure you're holding onto the mirror with your other hand when removing the last nut so that the mirror doesn't fall off.
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That's it! Mirrors off. I was gonna finish this post with prep and painting but UCONN WINS THE MOTHER EFFIN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP so I'll finish this tomorrow. Good night all!

Okay here's the rest:
I only needed to paint the triangular part of the mirror that attaches to the car, not the mirror cap so I wanted to disconnect it. To do this pull off the black rubber covering on the back and remove this screw and plastic piece.
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Remove the three screws at the bottom of the mirror and pull the two pieces apart. The purpose of removing the plastic piece in the previous step was so that you can feed the wire through and pull the two parts further apart. I wasn't able to figure out how to completely separate the pieces but this was good enough. After a little bit of wet sanding and wiping down with alcohol, I wrapped the mirror with a plastic bag and masked off the rest.
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For paints I used duplicolor primer, heather mist mica (honda color matched), and duplicolor clear coat.
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So here's where I screwed up. When taking off the cap of the spray paints, there's a little white plug. I thought that was just a plug to prevent leaking but apparently its a nozzle for a smooth even spray. The three coats of primer and first two coats of paint were done without nozzle so it was extremely runny as you'll see in the pictures. The last couple coats I did with the nozzle on and it didn't look too bad.
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See how splotchy the paint is when you don't use the nozzle? It doesn't look as bad once it dries though.
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Final coat of paint before clear coat
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I got really lazy with the prep work and didn't completely remove all the original paint so if you look really closely you can still see the lines where the original paint was chipping and where it was intact. Also, sanding with really fine sand paper in between primer coats would have helped smooth things out, but again I got lazy. After a couple clear coats, let it dry and put it all back together. Again its not perfect if you look closely but from 3+ feet away you can't tell. Good enough for now. Now that I look at it the mirror caps could use some touching up.

Finished Product:
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RedRyder

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Nice writeup, repped. Looks like the finish came out sort of "hammered", but better than before.
 

Brad2274

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that paint texture looks really bad, did you do any sanding before or after primer?? but at least the color matches :thumbsup:
 

kthung

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that paint texture looks really bad, did you do any sanding before or after primer?? but at least the color matches :thumbsup:

Yeah like I said in the post I didn't realize that you were supposed to keep the "nozzle" on the aerosol can for an even coat. The texture wasn't due to sanding the primer, but because the spray was coming out way too much at a time and ended up being splotchy/runny. As stated in my post more sanding before and after the primer would have helped smooth it out some too. The passenger side came out much better after I learned my lesson but it was getting dark and I didn't get any in-progress pictures of that.

For a first attempt I'm fine with it, like I said from a couple feet away you can't tell. Everything I'm doing on my car is a learning experience that I'm documenting so hopefully others can learn from my mistakes. I'm taking classes at the moment and use the car daily to commute so I didn't have time to redo it unless I wanted to drive around without mirrors (which I don't). The paint primer and clear coat were pretty cheap so I may end up redo-ing the entire mirror over the summer.
 
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agginline86

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excellent walk through
I'm sure those replacing the oem door speakers could use your write up to help!
 

kthung

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excellent walk through
I'm sure those replacing the oem door speakers could use your write up to help!

Thank you. Yeah I figured the door panel removal and side mirror removal would be the most helpful part of this post. The painting... not so much
 

Jordan_H

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It could be better but not everybody is checking out the paint on your side mirror. Good job on the write up though.
 

SykVSyx

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Repped for the DIY.

Room for improvement on the finished product, but looks better than before.
 

danielkrall

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Is it necessary to remove the whole door panel in order to reach the plug for the mirror? Or can you just loosen the circular clip and slide your hand in.
 

blackhawksfan18

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Is that Duplicolor paint any good? I read online reviews that say it puddles and it's total crap. I want to repaint my whole front bumper but I don't have the money for a professional job. I did find a can by sikkens online for $30... Turns out they're really good.
 
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