Rear View a Mirror a Repair

Thanks, wildmanbaker - that's pretty close to the solution I figured would be needed. The tubes are a nice addition; those address one of my major concerns. Thanks, everyone, for your input. It is appreciated.

This will not be an easy or fast fix. You have a steel, square tube cage built around the driving area. The mirrors are mounted on the outside near the dash. The easy way, without tearing the whole side apart, would be to do what has been done for years when adding a receiver hitch or doing suspension mods to passenger cars with a square frame. Use a 1/8" or thicker steel plate on the inside of the wall with a bolt pattern of the mirror base. You may have to trim/fit to the dash wall area inside. Using a long 1/8" bit drill through the wall from the outside into the people tank area, keeping the bit as square as possible to go straight in. You will need 4 bolts long enough to go through the mirror mount, wall and the new plate. After you determine the bolt size, you will need some pipe or steel tubing that the bolts will fit through. Once you determine the tubing size, drill a larger hole through the wall for the tubes. The tubes should be about 1/8" shorter that the wall thickness. The reasoning here is the tubing allows the mirror mount to be bolted up solid without crushing the wall to the steel cage. I would drill the bottom 2 holes first, then measure the mount pattern, to see if the pattern will fit under the dash. If not, a reevaluation of the process must be done for safety and looks on the inside of the MH.

Sounds like the wood really needs to be replaced, or at least backed with a new piece and bolted with a lag rather than threaded. Understandably it's probably hard to get to, but if you can cut the piece to the size of the footprint of the mirror, glue it over the old rotten piece from the inside and lag bolt the mirror through that. My concern would be that if the wood next to the fiberglass is rotten, when you compress the mirror to the body you risk crushing the fiberglass into the soft wood and further exacerbating your problem. If it were me and I couldn’t replace the wood myself, I would call a repair shop. You may have to end up taking out the dash to get to it. 5 minute fix, few hours of labor just getting to it and putting it back together.

if you can get back there, drill all the way thru, use a long enough machine screw and a fender washer or nut on the backside.
If you want to get really creative, they make threaded insrets you can hammer in form behind to make a near permanent threaded hole

How about some of those expanding fasteners like you would use to hang something heavy on a hollow wall. You pound it in, with screw in place, then tighten up the screw, it pulls the end towards you, which makes 4 wings bend outwards, making eventually, a large cross of metal to hold the threaded end. Then, unscrew the screw, replace it with a longer one (probably), and screw it into the fastener and tighten it. If there's any structure at all in there, it will hold onto something.

How about some of those expanding fasteners like you would use to hang something heavy on a hollow wall. You pound it in, with screw in place, then tighten up the screw, it pulls the end towards you, which makes 4 wings bend outwards, making eventually, a large cross of metal to hold the threaded end. Then, unscrew the screw, replace it with a longer one (probably), and screw it into the fastener and tighten it. If there's any structure at all in there, it will hold onto something.

Depending on how much room you have, cut your piece of plywood lather it with some silicone and stick it up in place. The silicone will take only a few minutes to hold the plywood in place. With the mirror OFF, drill a hole thru to the plywood and run a screw in from the OUTSIDE to hold it in place, then mount the mirror....Good luck...Dennis

What you probably do not realize is the piece of plywood you thing is in there is not ply wood. it's most likely chipboard. other wise known as reconstituted saw dust, when it got wet, it turns back into saw dust.

That is exactly what My Sister's Hurricane did. never did get fixed.

Thanks, 1BryNelson - I originally tried injecting the old holes with an epoxy filler but it just didn't work. It's not that the screws are stripped as much as it is that the wood is rotted around the old screw holes. I've been looking for a mirror with a larger base that would let me install the mirror using different holes but no luck so far. Have also thought about changing to the "stick out of the front" type mirrors as I can get up behind that area to install backing, but no luck there so far either.

Have you thought of putting screws in coated with 1 of those new super adhesive's? You would need a way of putting properly applied pressure on the mirror, and if there are any gaps around mirror base I'd shoot a sealant into that area before tightening down.