Wing Morror Housing replace/repair

[Conan_the_Librarian]

Today I mostly did a door mirror swap. When I got the project 8 they only significant body damage visible was a smashed drivers side mirror and housing. I had either to order a new one from Audi, wait for one the same colour to come into A8 parts or upgrade. As I know we all like upgrades I thought a nice pair of S8 mirrors with an added twist; but that’s another how to!

This one is how to swap your door mirror housing over.

In the picture are the broken mirror and housing and the pair of cast aluminium housings. You may notice that one housing is shinier than the other, but that is another how-to.







So it starts with dismantling the old door mirror. Underneath there is a plate with 2 screws to remove.


Remove them and wiggle the plate clear.
Once the plate is off you can remove the mirror by pushing it from behind from the edge nearest the door. I got it wrong and broke the mounting ring the mirror push fits to on the passenger side. Although I didn’t break the mirror.

Once the mirror is out you will have this


Except you will have the ring and small white piece still attached. The ring can be refitted, the rocker arm I had snapped and did a temp repair with araldite; I hope it holds!

Remove the 3 circled screws and the housing can be removed.



Below, the red line highlights a lug that caused a small problem. It is ‘T’ shaped and as you can see in the photos:







You can just see below that the plastic cover is ‘T’ shaped and the Aluminium cover is ‘L’.



Initially I was going to mod the Ali cover. Then I decided to mod the lug.


Using some square nose pliers:







I snapped off the appropriate side of the ‘T’. Note that you need to make sure you take of the excess metal all the way down and you may have to file the top of the 'L' to allow the cover to sit flush with the mirror mounting.






Once this was done the Ali covers fitted straight on.

Assemble is the reverse of removal as they say.