SERVICING RAMCO MIRRORS

Transcription

1 SERVICING RAMCO MIRRORS Few Items on our coaches have generated the number of complaints or have been the source of as many problems as the mirrors. It would be assumed on a very expensive coach that the last item to have problems with would be the mirrors, but that assumption would be wrong. The complaints involve the chrome plating. The reason is simple. The mirror plating appears sub standard and replating using the full chrome plating process including a base plating of copper appears to solve the problem. But even on mirrors with perfect plating owners are finding immediately that the glass in the main mirror housing shakes and vibrates, something that is just not acceptable. The parts of the mirrors can be replated using good industry techniques and the issue of failing chrome goes away. Typically the problem shows up as what would be considered thin plating on the mirror arm, or bubbles in the chrome on the mirror head usually as a result of the plating having a microscopic opening which allows the introduction of moisture, leading to corrosion of the aluminum beneath the outer chrome surface. The chrome plating on the arm however just begins to show as a slightly milky appearance which appears to look like the chrome plating is wearing off or is too thin. Both the mirror vibration and the poor quality of the plating have been brought to the attention of Prevost and the mirror manufacturer and the result of those conversations has been unsatisfying to say the least. So as a result we have undertaken the effort to show how a mirror can be completely disassembled for plating to address that issue first. The start is to remove the mirror(s) from the coach. On older coaches removing four large phillips head screws and then disconnecting the wiring connector does the trick. Once removed and on the bench disassembly of the entire mirror is required so starting with mirror glass removal is a good place to begin. The mirror on the large head is held in place by two Velcro strips running the length of the mirror. Start by separating the Velcro strips. I used a small putty knife between the hook and loops of the Velcro, and once the two halves were separate I slid a piece of paper between the pieces of Velcro to prevent the mirror from re-attaching the glass to the base plate. I bent the paper and taped it to the mirror glass.

2 I started at one end and worked my way down the mirror, and once the two pieces of Velcro were separated I slid a piece of paper between them and taped it to the glass so it would not slip out Not real sophisticated but it worked.

3 Once I got the Velcro separated on each side of the mirror glass the mirror still was secured to the glass base. The reason is at the top and bottom of the mirror there is a dab of some sealant that is squeezed in between the glass and the base plate and once it hardens it holds the glass tightly. I again used a putty knife to slit between the glass and base plate. Anything that will reach the sealant will work as long as it is sharp enough to push through the dab of sealant. In his video Tom used a hacksaw plade. On this particular mirror the dab of sealant was old, hard and difficult to slice through. As can be seen from the photos below I ended up tearing a piece out of the aluminum foil that is bonded to the rear of the mirror and is there to hold the heater coil for the mirror defrosting in place. Review this video t&threadid=4622 to see exactly where and how to separate the glass from the base plate. When Tom made the video he was working with a new mirror assembly so you will see differences between his mirror assembly and the one shown in this article but the underlying principles are the same.

4 Here you can see the two dabs or globs of sealant stuck to the base plate. In separating the mirror from the base plate this particular mirror s heating element is held in place with an aluminum foil sheet and instead of slicing through the hardened sealant the foil tore and separated from the glass. You can see the H configuration of the heater coil. The heater connectors were a little corroded together so a couple of pair of pliers were used to grab onto the terminals and pull them apart. The older the mirror the more likely the sealant which supplements the Velcro strips is going to be hard to cut through. Additionally the corrosion on the terminals is going to make separation of the terminals more difficult so be prepared to struggle a little, but do so carefully. This particular mirror is about 13 or 14 years old and the amount of aging shows in just about everything. In addition to the terminals and the hardened dab of sealant there was excessive lifting of the plating and where the plating had failed there was a large amount of white powdery corrosion from the aluminum material. That shows that the slightest breach of the chrome plating is going to allow aluminum under the chrome surface to rust and if the breach is on a visible part of the mirror the impact on the appearance will be substantial.

5 Pliers were needed to separate the terminals Typical of the corrosion seen on the mirrors.

6 The next step is to remove the base plate and motor. This is an older style motor and removing 4 screws is required. I had to peel a foil cover from the base plate to get at the motor. The four screws on this assembly enable the removal of the motor and base plate.

7 To get the base plate this far out, the wire bundle had to be pulled through the arm. It is painful to have to cut the wires, but it has to be done. Look carefully at the RH end of the orange wire and you will see where it was pinched and the wire is exposed.

8 This pinched wire could have created a problem but it appears to have not. Ouch. That hurts, but do not fear. Prevost has the kit to replace the connector. Just keep the old one so the wires get reinstalled in the right place. Now to work on removing the upper mirror and housing.

9 Here is where this project gets ugly. On this particular mirror assembly it appears the mirror can be removed from the housing like it was on the large mirror. The putty knife was used to cut the glue bond between the mirror housing and the base plate which is a plastic component. The best laid plans of mice and men don t always work out. In the photo below it shows cutting the seal at that location released the mirror, but damaged the heating element on this version of mirror heater. Adding insult to an already injured mirror is removing the mirror did nothing to expose fasteners to unscrew the motor assembly from the housing. As it turns out this particular version of mirror and motor assembly was not meant to be serviced, repaired or disassembled. It can be presumed if there are issues with plating, broken glass, a failed motor this particular version of the upper head assembly has to be bought as a complete assembly unless Ramco will sell individual parts that have to be assembled as they were from the factory. Or maybe the design has changed. The following photos show how what started as a good project is turning into a problem.

10 The outer perimeter seal was cut successfully, but when the inner seal seen as a circle had to be cut this project started going down hill. The mirror base was pried up and in doing it damaged the motor connectors. The seal around the ring on the mirror base should have been cut but you cannot get a

11 tool in there. A small phillips screw driver was used to remove the motor assembly. And then a new problem arises. The screws will not come out and need to be drilled.

12 Dissimilar metals and corrosion kept the screws tightly in place. With the screw heads drilled off the two heads were separated, The screw body needs to be drilled from the small head and the holes in the large head need to be opened a little to allow larger screws and retapped holes.

13 Even with the allen screws loose, corrosion once again presents a challenge in getting the arm and the head separated. Driving a pickling fork between the head and arm separated the two.

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15 Putting the part that slid into the mirror head in a vise and rapping on the arm with a soft faced hammer separated the balance of the parts from the arm. Disassembly required a struggle with corrosion every step of the way. Even getting the lower bolt out was a problem due to corrosion.

16 The four pieces that would be replated. Corrosion was everywhere. Who says aluminum doesn t rust? The bottom line on this project is completely different from the original premise. It

17 began with the intent to show how to disassemble all the mirror components. That has been accomplished by not in a manner that allows this to be a project an owner can do to repair shoddy plating. Since Ramco does such a lousy job of supporting its product, and shows absolutely no desire to cure the plating problem or the mirror shakes, it is foolish to expect their help in supplying replacement parts to replace those that might get damaged during disassembly. I haven t spoken to Ramco about buying a new upper mirror head assembly to replace one not intended to be serviced because if the intent is to fix the plating problem you would be buying a replacement assembly with the same lousy plating. I don t know if they would provide parts for final assembly only and allow you to use properly plated parts you get from a plater. As much as I hate to say this I hope this article helps you to understand how to disassemble a mirror for service or repair, such as glass replacement, but I cannot express confidence doing a project like this to get the parts ready for replating will be viable. I have a lot of tools and patience, but I still have about 6 hours getting everything apart. Re-assembly could take longer because the wires that had to be cut need to be repaired, some damaged components need complete replacement and the end result is it will look nice for a long time, but the mirror will still shake. I cannot envision a good way to stop that shaking and still allow the mirror head to move freely for adjustment. Chalk this project up as a learning process. I hope it helps anyone that does have to do a repair. Jon W. Wehrenberg December 16, 2015 ]