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The chrome on the caps is PITA to take off. I am gonna try sand blasting tomorrow. If that fails, time to buy pre painted caps off eBay.
I just changed my chrome caps to painted oxford white caps from ebay. The quality is great and they are genuine ford parts. I agree that taking the old caps off is a real hassle but I bought these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and it made my life so so much easier. Took 2 minutes a side. By using these tools, you don't have to take the glass off. You can pull the cap from outside of the mirror housing.
Well done tutorial with excellent photos. I just switched out my mirror caps today following your instructions and it went just as you described.
Thanks for your help!
-Len
Big thanks to Austin Ron for his photos and description of how to remove stock mirror caps and install new ones!!
I just installed chrome mirror skull caps on my new XLT and following his procedure it was a piece of cake. I read through the instructions provided with the caps but Ron's pix made the procedure much more understandable and easier.
A couple of additional comments - although some have successfully pried the stock caps off without disassembly of the mirror, I can't imagine successfully doing that with mine, as they were tight !! In fact, even when I had the two halves in my hand, I couldn't disengage the tabs without fear of breaking something, and I certainly didn't want to damage the part I was re-using. Soo......I cut the tabs as Ron suggested and I recommend doing so also. Total time for me was about 45 minutes........but......about half of that was spent trying to release the tabs before I decided to cut them.
Again, this is not really difficult to do - just read through Ron's text and pics a couple times first.
Just upgraded from an 09 5.4v8 to a 14 3.5 Ecoboost with Tow Max package. Got an itch to upgrade the skull caps on my tow mirrors to chrome ($36/pr on ebay). Threads and youtube helped but the original caps weren't coming off as easily as the youtube video suggested. I think a lot of folks on this thread felt the same way. But instead of disassembling the whole thing, I took "Ford2WD" approach with a little wrinkle. I used a couple of screwdrivers and a headlamp. With one screwdriver, I pried the outside edge of the cap off the housing until I could see one of the retaining clamps with my headlamp. I pushed on the tab with my other screwdriver and that was sufficient to get the cover to yield. The rest was easy, after I got that first tab to yield. I like the new look
I just changed my chrome caps to painted oxford white caps from ebay. The quality is great and they are genuine ford parts. I agree that taking the old caps off is a real hassle but I bought these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and it made my life so so much easier. Took 2 minutes a side. By using these tools, you don't have to take the glass off. You can pull the cap from outside of the mirror housing.
Do you have a link to the ebay site with the prepainted caps? Any photos? Thanks!
Bringing this back from the dead, but wanted to thank Ron for the write up. Ordered PTM caps and installed them in 15 minutes. Walkthroughs like this are great, love when I can do a project without breaking anything!
Resurrecting this again after a year and a half or more... just did this project and love the results. It is raining today or i'd post pictures. I will say - i was very careful removing the stock black caps and I still broke one tab completely off and broke "half" of another tab but it is still on. Maybe the weather is a factor since it is cold here and when it's warm the plastic is more pliable? Either way they will work and the difference is incredible. Thanks for this write-up again - I know its been a while!
07-03-2016, 11:32 PM
