Finally time to put the proper looking mirrors back on. Side mirrors on series up to 2a are round and mounted near the front of the wings, series 3 introduced larger rectangular mirrors first on the wings and later on the windscreen hinges, and defenders are integrated with the door hinges. Concerns about the small, round wing-mounted mirrors are often that they are small, far away, or hard to see. However, the location up on the wings is actually much better than on the doors as it is sort of like a heads-up display right in your field of vision all the time. These are slightly convex, at least nearer the edges so they pull in a reasonable amount of area for their size.
The mounting point holes on this vehicle had a rubber plug on the passenger side and a very rusty bolt with washers on the driver’s side. Likely the plug is original and the vehicle came from the factory with a driver’s side wing-mounted mirror only. At some point in the late 70’s or early 80’s it was relocated to the passenger side wing and a large rectangular mirror was mounted in a hole drilled through the driver’s side windscreen hinge. Later it was removed and another mismatched rectangular mirror was mounted on the passenger side windscreen hinge. While the extra size is nice, the problem with them is the location always seems to conflict with the opening of the doors, and the passenger side especially is always knocked out of alignment by the door. Beyond that, the position was such that they were almost always nearly useless without major head/body shifting to see them. At some point they could be wing-mounted in series 3 style if necessary, but they are much heavier than the round versions which may be why they were not put there by the previous owner.
Aside from removing the one rusty bolt, installation is fairly quick and straightforward. The washers and nut for the arms tightened in the correct locations, then the head installed, adjusted, and tightened. On the driver’s side it was necessary to disassemble the head mount and shave off a couple of mm of material on one side in the swivel hole to get the proper alignment from the driver’s seat. One thing that is lacking is that a metal head version did not seem to be available, everything else is made from steel but the head itself is plastic. Perhaps there are some out there somewhere. At any rate, they look great and seem to work well.
