LH 1940 Convertible "Peep Mirror"

[glennpm]

Hi,

I've been thinking and searching for years to get a decent right side mirror for my 40 convertible. I need the mirror when backing out of garage and at all times when the top is up. I have the cowl mounted ones now and like the look but the RH one is pure ornamental. So, a few days back I thought I'd experiment a bit.

I bought a pair of peep mirrors from a after seeing a guy’s 32 roadster with mirrors that I wanted. Well, the mirrors he sent were a little different and wouldn’t work well on the 32 so I put them away. BTW, I modified; heat, bent and polished the straight rod original type on my 32 roadster so it is now useful. The mirror is 3" in diameter and similar to this one. Could be the same one used to tap to 3/8-24".


https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Unite...or,419198.html

One of the nice things with the peep mirrors I bought is that the mirror arm was tapped to 3/8-24 thread. There was stud in the arm that was easily removed. I decided to use a 3/8” socket head Allen bolt and someway make a bock for mounting. I cut a piece of aluminum I had to about 7/32” X 13/16” X 2” long. I reduced the height of the socket head such that the Allen key socket was shallow, but still adequate.

I had to cut it out of a block so had to make three straight cuts with a hacksaw guided by some angle iron to keep the cut straight and perpendicular. Now onto the drill press to drill a not quite perpendicular 3/8” hole through and then 9/16” to within about 5/32” shy of the front side. I had planned to clean the bottom of the 9/16” hole with an end mill but found it was not necessary. I mounted the rough block to the stainless 40 windows frame, adjusted the mirror head and all looked good. Then on to the files, blue nylon 240 grit wheel, Scotchbrite, 400 grit paper and then polishing buffer.

I assembled with blue Loctite and used 3M VHB double side tape to stick to the window frame.

We'll see how it is on the road in a few weeks.

Glenn