Color matched mirror housings w/ carbon fiber cover

[Stormtroop_R]

Hello everyone!

I just got a project done about a week ago, and I figured it would make a great forum post. I'm sure you can get a good idea where I am going with the title of the post, but here we go!

I purchased all of the OEM accessories when I got my car. I had everything installed, but when it came to the mirror covers I did not want to lose the white accent to the mirrors. I have a friend who is a Tech for Honda. He is an OG, and has been helping my buddies in the scene for decades. His idea was that we take the mirror housing apart, and paint them. That way when we put on the carbon covers, we do not lose the shape of the mirror on the profile of the car. #firstworldproblems

We started by taking the mirrors off. I did not get any pictures of the process, but I will do my best to explain it.

There is a piece of hard plastic trim you must remove to get your button/switch panel off. It is easiest to start at the back, and easily hidden if you scratch is accidentally. Once you have the switch panel off, you must remove the Phillips screw holding the door panel to the door. After the screw is removed start at the bottom and pop your door panel off. A good quick tug will usually get this started. Just be careful with the clips. You can always get more if you break one.

After removing your door panel there will be 3 nuts, and two flat metal clips, and one plastic pin holding your mirror to the door. Remove the 3 nuts, and you should be able to wiggle the mirror free. I have my window visors on so it was a bit more difficult. We just had to be careful not to come directly out. Once we had the clips free the mirror was able to be removed diagonally out towards the front of the car and down.

Ok! Mirrors are now free. That was the easy part. Now we gotta figure out how to get these housings apart. We did break 1 clip in the process, but it doesn't seem to effect the structure. We wanted to leave the base of the mirror black, so we had to separate them completely. This is also generally just a better way to paint.

The next part took us the longest, and that was figuring out how to get the base apart from the mirror housing. The small cover is where the tab broke, but it still securely lock in despite that. There is a hole in this cover. We were able to get a screwdriver inside, and push on the locking tab. After the cover is off, there will only be 3 Phillips screws holding the mirror to the base. The mirror itself is removed with just a few clips on the back. A small flat head screwdriver did the trick.

I wish I had photos of the motor housing, but once you remove the mirror there is a white plate the mirror mounts to. Behind that there is a circle clamp spring holding the mirror mount to the mirror motor. Once you slide this circle clamp down you can pull the mirror mount off the motor. This allows you to start working on the mirror cover itself. There are 3 different release points inside the mirror housing. I found this diagram that helped me figure out what the hell we were doing. You will also have to unpin the harness clip. It will not fit through the hole if you do plan on separating the housing from the base.

Once you have the top cover off, you can start working on getting the two halves apart, and get the motor out.

Now we get the plastic ready for paint. We used some fine scuff pads to remove any shine/oil/dirt/grime that may be on the plastic. Once we had them nice and stuffed up we put on a quick coat of adhesion promotion. Last thing I wanted was to spend all this time and have the paint fall off, so we felt both of these steps were very necessary.

After a couple layers of Chromabase Championship White and a layer of clear we were almost ready!

Left is the housing we painted, and the right is the original OEM white cover. It looks like a good match!

Now that we are painted we just have to reverse the process to get them back together! Just follow the steps in reverse. Soon you will have something looking a little like this!

Holy cow, right?!?! I mean I knew what I wanted, but they really came out amazing. Now we just gotta bolt them back onto the car.

Hope this helps someone in the future! What does everyone think? I am really happy with how they came out.

 

[hikaru]

Mind to share which carbon overlay did you buy for the project?

I'd prefer the carbon overlay on black housing though, to each of its own.

 

[SpicyMcFatburger]

Mind to share which carbon overlay did you buy for the project?

I'd prefer the carbon overlay on black housing though, to each of its own.

He says he purchased OEM accessories, so those would be the Honda overlays.

 

[hikaru]

He says he purchased OEM accessories, so those would be the Honda overlays.

The fitment varies from the way I see it. I saw someone else with the Honda overlay won't cover up the entire housing undernealth.

emmmm nah i like the flat black better..

I feel the same for the lower halve, kinda looks like an distraction with the shroud around mirror painted just the white face smartphone. Personal preference though.

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