Hi,
Looking for some advice as have been offerred a pair of red wing mirrors for my silver MX-5 cheaply would it be worth getting these and spraying them or is it a lot of hassle and just get silver new ones?
Also if need to spray them can I just get Halfords stuff or do I need a particular Mazda paint?
You’ll need to rub down the red mirrors, mask the mirror glass and prime, then spray in the correct shade of silver and finally coat the silver in lacquer. Halfords will colour match the silver and provide the lacquer.
Costs will be approx. Primer - £6.00, Silver colour matched paint - £12.00 and Lacquer - £6.00.
awesome thanks for that ;o)
Be careful here, I went down this route when sorting a small blemish in my daughters KA. The paint was matched and off I went. All I can say is that when I started to spray, I was shocked. The colour was worse than a Duplicolor can. I phoned Halfords and they told me that there was no mistake. I went back and showed them the colour difference. The reply was that my paint had faded. Surely this is the point of colour matching? The best bet here is to go to your local automotive paint retailer and have them mix up a rattle can or two. these are not big bucks and are useful to have in the garage.
Masking the black bezel is a PITA, IMHO. My advice would be to strip the mirrors down completely and take the opportunity to replace the rusty/broken swivel bolt and to clean up and grease the metal bracket and ball and socket swivel joint. If you run a Stanley knife carefully around the joint between the bezel and the main shell/cowl then the bezel will just pop off so that you can remove the mirror glass and disassemble the mirror completely. Use spots of superglue to fix the bezel back on after painting and reassembling the shell.
Comments above are assuming that you have manual mirrors on a Mk1. May not make much sense if you have electric mirrors on a Mk1, or Mk2 mirrors.
I refinished my mirrors in Satin Black 'cos I’m a cheapskate.
Where can these be purchased from? Thx
You can buy a “repair kit” from AutoLink for about £1.30 + VAT each or alternatively source some M5 x 45mm or M5 x 50mm bolts, nyloc nuts and washers from a decent hardware or fasteners supplier. I would use stainless hardware for this.