My mirrors suck

[BrianX128]

I can't stand the tiny regular side mirrors on my 350, I'm looking around online and I really like the school bus style tall vertical mirrors, but I'm curious what the easiest ones are to toss on. Not only for vision but the small ones just look stupid to me. Anyone change theirs and have any recommendations as to what was easy to swap? Thanks!

 

[dunk]

Not sure but I like old 80s side mirrors in the original size. The repop mirrors I've used and have come on some trucks I've had are all crap. The mirror zooms in so you get an up close look at one tiny spot but overall can't see jack and may as well have no mirrors. I suspect it's a government mandate that came about in the 90s. I stick those small convex mirrors on mine and don't even bother trying to make out anything in the worthless telescopic lens mirror. If you come across any stock repop mirrors that preserve the field of view of the originals let me know.

 

[The Warden]

I can't stand the tiny regular side mirrors on my 350, I'm looking around online and I really like the school bus style tall vertical mirrors, but I'm curious what the easiest ones are to toss on. Not only for vision but the small ones just look stupid to me. Anyone change theirs and have any recommendations as to what was easy to swap? Thanks!

You have two choices for OEM mirror assemblies.

The first would be to get the 7x10 tripod mirrors that many of these trucks were equipped with, similar to this:

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The second would be a West Coast mirror assembly. You can find OEM West Coast mirror assemblies that will fit our doors; they were used on the medium-duty trucks that used our cabs, or you can find them on U-Haul trucks. Something like this:

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For either of those trucks, if you can get the internal hardware, it's just a matter of drilling a few holes in your door (MAKE SURE YOU GET MEASUREMENTS EXACT BEFORE DRILLING) and covering up the bottom holes from your current setup

 

[BrianX128]

I like the second option better and it is of course more expensive then the first option though it would still be better then the same tiny mirrors that are on my 150 and 250. The search continues.

 

[crash-harris]

I will warn you, "west coast style" mirrors are narrower than the factory "sport" mirrors. Convex mirrors added on top help.

I'll upload some pics for you tomorrow. I did the conversion to west coast mirrors on Bruiser with all ebay purchases and reused the bottom mount from the factory sport mirror to mount the top rod. Support rods are less than $20 each and the mirrors are less than $55 for the pair. Heated and with marker/turn lamps.

And I completely forgot to get pics of Bruiser's interior lights for your other thread toast, so I'll get those as well

 

[The Warden]

I will warn you, "west coast style" mirrors are narrower than the factory "sport" mirrors. Convex mirrors added on top help.

Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable driving one of these trucks without convex mirrors. They really do make a world of difference if you use them properly. I even have convex stick-on mirrors on my Jetta

As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as too much rear visibility...I'm even planning to install a back-up camera

 

[crash-harris]

+1 on that. I'm fine without convex mirrors on Bruiser, but it's easy to look over my shoulder at my blind spots with it being a SCLB. But with the Enterprise being a CCLB, I don't want to even imagine the PITA it would be to change lanes without them. Blind spots a mile long.

 

[dunk]

+1 on that. I'm fine without convex mirrors on Bruiser, but it's easy to look over my shoulder at my blind spots with it being a SCLB. But with the Enterprise being a CCLB, I don't want to even imagine the PITA it would be to change lanes without them. Blind spots a mile long.

Funny you say that. Having primarily driven 60s Ford cars and 80s Ford trucks all my life I am terrified whenever I have to drive a new car. Cannot see a damn thing out of them. A/B/C pillars are huge, doors extremely high and glass small and slanted. Any new car is many times worse than any 60s fastback I ever drove, and that's with the added bonus of a useless passenger side mirror. Driving an econobox no more than 8' long I am entirely uncomfortable because I cant' see a damn thing. Newer SUVs and trucks are even worse because you know there's a lot more than a couple feet of car behind you and visiblity is even worse between the glass, huge pillars, and monstrous seat and interior parts. White knuckle drive every time I'm in a new vehicle, and it's usually in a city during rush hour which makes it that much worse.

Every time I've such a sigh of relief to be back in my own vehicle, which is virtually a 360* panoramic view. I don't like electronics and such but the absolute #1 reason I only drive old iron is visibility. Safety first, or at least as an afterthought. Thank Uncle Sam for the lack of visibility in modern death traps.

 

[needlenose]

...I am terrified whenever I have to drive a new car. Cannot see a damn thing out of them. A/B/C pillars are huge, doors extremely high and glass small and slanted. Any new car is many times worse than any 60s fastback ...

Funny you say that; I feel the same way. I don't own any vehicles in the 2000's. I travel * a lot* and have driven most of the cars Avis runs. With the exception of the Jetta TSI, all of them have pathetic visibility. I recently had Avis stick me in the new Ecoboost Mustang. I literally felt like I was back in an M1A1. Tiny slits to look out of, mirrors sucked, and there was 100' of hood sticking out in front. I drove it for the 3 weeks I was out there and eventually started to get used to it. But man was it nice to get back to my Civic. Huge windows all the way around.

For all it's lack of visibility though, that Mustang would flat out run.

 

[dunk]

I'm familiar with the Avis fleet. Usually their subcompacts or big SUV depending on if I need 4x4 or not. Almost got t-boned in an Expedition thanks to zero visibility. If the lack of visibility doesn't get you, the airbags loaded with buckshot surely will. My girl has a newer Jetta, it's bad but I've been in much worse. If the mirrors weren't so tiny it would be better. Not a fan of German cars since ZF transmissions (Zeitkurz Flugverschiebung) are the only thing I've ever had to replace annually in my trucks. That and electronically integrated everything and PITA to service anything.

I'm amazed the general population tolerates the visiblity in new cars, surely everyone has been in a 90s car?

 

[crash-harris]

Hate hate hate that feature of newer vehicles. I have an '08 Hyundai Accent (not my choice) and I can't see s***t out of it..and the windshield special ability is to catch rain, like making it seem that it's raining harder. My grandparents have a chiselnose F150 ('98, '99-ish) and the A pillars are so large on it that I have troubles seeing other vehicles when rounding curves.

 

[Dieselcrawler]

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I love my west coasts. Factory ones off a f800

 

[crash-harris]

Factory long arm lower bracket (there is a shorter version). If you do this, male sure you brave AND seal around the bolt holes in the door skins. Enterprise's PO that painted it did not and it started to rust around them.

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More pics in next post...

 

[crash-harris]

Here's how I did the west coast mirrors on Bruiser. Truck originally had the swing away sport mirrors and I reused the brackets that bolt to the door.

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Passenger side with a convex mirror clamped on.

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I mounted then with one short arm and 2 long arms each. Plan to eventually put a stud in the factory nut with a wingnut so the mirrors can still be folded for trail rides.

I really want to get the equipment to powdercoat stuff myself and do the arms and mirror backings to match the rest of the hardware. You can see where the flat black spray paint has worn off after a few years.

 

[The Warden]

@crash-harris Interesting setups, but how do you handle vertical adjustments on the "main" mirrors?