fixing manual mirrors ?

Hi,

On both of my Cherokees, my door manual mirrors dont work I move the adjusters and they dont move very well, sometimes only one way.. down.. Well, Is there a way I can bring these back to life ? Or do I need to buy new ones ? I see them for sale on ebay for about $50 each.. shipped to me. They are aftermarket ones.. are they decent ?

Any ideas or thoughts ?

Yeah, both my xj 's mirrors are the same way.The best way I found to fix them is to move the lever inside while putting pressure on the mirror glass itself, and then when you get them set where you want them, threaten to break anyones fingers who moves them.
If I remember correctly, there are two cables and springs inside, and the cables tend to stretch over the years.
Check at local Junk yards for ones that work, hopefully they havent all been taken already, but I think I paid 10 dollars for my last one, much cheaper than the 50 from e-bay

I think Jeep designed them to fail....there is no fix that I know of. I tried a bunch of stuff....none of it worked.

Rev

Try not to press on the glass too much because this will break the gimbal inside the mirrors, and they will then flop. The mirrors pivot on a cross shaped gimbal, which is made of cast aluminum, which corrodes, and it's easily broken. If you have any movement at all, the best way to start is just to keep wiggling the control without pushing on the mirror, and see if you can get the movement to increase gradually. Don't give up. It can take 50 or so tries before it frees up. I've had some success squirting oil in there, but it's messy. There's no good way to get inside without removing the glass, which is stuck in.

If the gimbal is already broken, you might be able to use a heat gun to soften the adhesive on the mirror, take the mirror apart, and replace the gimbal. Long ago someone here reported making a new gimbal with pieces of welding rod or the like, brazed together.

The mechanism might be OK. I found that once I'd taken the back plate off the inside of the door it was obvious that the joystick bit had come loose. Once I'd seated it back into the right place it was fine. There's a little groove in the plastic housing for the cables that locates into a notch: it's small and easily overlooked.

I put the PB Blaster to mine, and worked the cables for a while. I got mine to work better, but not like new.

I was lucky enough to score a set off a 96 at the junkyard, then i threw mine in the parts bin.

Chancer said:

The mechanism might be OK. I found that once I'd taken the back plate off the inside of the door it was obvious that the joystick bit had come loose. Once I'd seated it back into the right place it was fine. There's a little groove in the plastic housing for the cables that locates into a notch: it's small and easily overlooked.

Click to expand...

All that and tighting the mounting screws got mine to work - sort of.