On the way home from the Putty Ride a couple of weekends ago, my left hand mirror started to vibrate, but, as we were close to home, I let it go until we got home and went out to the garage the next morning to tighten up the bolt that secures it (this has happened to me before).
Imagine my surprise when, upon removing the rubber sheath that disguises the mirror stem, the mirror fell off in my hand. The stem which is held by the “C” clamp on the fairing, had broken straight through. Now the stem is “waisted” in the middle to allow the allen key that closes the “C” clamp to pass by it, and, as you’d expect, the stem had broken at its weakest point.
Since “repair rather than replace” has become my mantra of late (through financial necessity rather than any ideological reasons), I took the broken stem and end down to my local engineering shop to get them to weld the two pieces back together. But they were closed for a week of holidays. Damn.
Oh well, the local muffler shop should also be able to do that sort of welding, I thought, so I went a few doors down and asked the guy if he could weld it. “Yeah, mate,” was the reply, “That should be easy.” As he said so, the mirror slipped out of his hands and he did a fancy rescue job, stopping it from hitting the concrete floor with his boot. He reached down and picked it up, only to drop it again straight away and, when he picked it up, the mirror was smashed!
“Gee, sorry, mate.” was all the response I got. I was so furious I just walked out. Yes, I know should have demanded he pay for it.
So I ordered a new mirror and fitted it when it arrived, but it was dreadful. It was an after-market one ($49.00) and the quality of the mirror itself was appalling. The bottom 3/4 of an inch of the mirror was really bad and distorted the image quite alarmingly. And the rubber sheath didn’t fit properly on either end and kept slipping off its mounting. Not happy, Jan.
In the mean time, one of the guys on Ozvfr had suggested that I could go to a glazier and have the glass in my old mirror replaced. So, I checked with Haines Glass in Dapto and, what do you know? Yes, they could fix it, and, yes, it would be ready tomorrow for the grand price of $15.00. Excellent. So, the next morning I picked it up and went back to my favourite engineering shop, MLR Engineering in Marshall Street and showed the broken stem to Murray. Yes, he could weld it back together and, yes, he could increase the diameter of the stem where it was waisted to make it even stronger than it would have been when it was new. Next morning I picked up the mirror from him, Ka-ching, $15.00 please.
So, for a grand total of $30.00, I had the genuine mirror back, it fits properly and there is no distortion in the reflected image. But what of the purchased mirror? Well, the good guys at TJM’s took it back and credited me back the $49.00 to my account. A good result all-round, really.
But the best part is that yesterday morning I went back to the muffler shop and politely suggested to the guy that, since he had broken the mirror that he should at least partly compensate me for the $50.00 it had cost me to replace it. He didn’t say a word, but he reached into his wallet, took out a $50.00 note and flung it across the counter at me. “Thank you so much,” I said, politely, and left quickly.
You catch more bees with honey than you do with vinegar.