The bike came with two original Tanaka mirrors, no clamps, and one of the mirrors had a couple of big cracks. I decided to replace the glass as I couldn't find a similar Tanaka mirror on the net.
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| Original Tanaka Yamaha RD125A mirror |
It looked pretty simple, just cut a new mirror, but I found it a bit difficult to measure the old mirror diameter. To play it safe I measured it and then made a paper template... After the third try it was OK...
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| Paper template, piece of mirror and lamp oil |
In a second hand shop I found a nice mirror for 2 bucks.
Now take your glass circle cutter of the paper template and mount it on the real mirror. With a cotton ball wipe some lamp oil on the glass where you wanna cut it, this will give you a nice smooth cut. Apply light pressure and move the cutter all the way round but DON'T go over the starting point (otherwise you'll damage the smooth first cut), you'll hear a kind of click and that's the sign to stop, take the cutter off and push on the edge all the way round while holding your thump underneath... after that tap the mirror underneath at the cut (the glass cut is only a light scratch..) keep tapping until you hear a glass cracking sound.. now push on the crack with your thumb again. You'll see the cut getting deeper while pushing along the cut. After that you can carefully remove the outer edges. If it's too hard you can make a couple of extra straight cuts from the edge of the circle towards the edge of the original mirror (see second pic below where I made one extra straight cut).
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| Cutting a new mirror - Yamaha RD 125 A |
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| Cutting a new mirror - Yamaha RD 125 A |
After removing the old mirror glass I finally could reach the inner nut of the Tanaka mirror and take it apart.
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| Taking apart Tanaka mirror - Yamaha RD 125 A |
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| Taking apart Tanaka mirror - Yamaha RD 125 A |
It needed a good clean and a new nut. I fitted the new mirror with acid free silicone (don't use other silicons as the will stain the silver mirror after a couple of weeks).
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| Special mirror silicone - Acid free silicone |
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| New mirror glass in place - Tanaka Mirror Yamaha RD125 A |
Before I fitted the new mirror I used some Loctite on the inside nut. You cannot tighten this nut too much (no movement anymore) and you don't want to get it loose after fitting the new mirror. So make sure you give it the right torque before you fit the new mirror glass.
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| Using Loctite on the inner mirror nut - Yamaha RD125 |
After searching for a couple of weeks for the original mirror brackets I finally found a couple on Ebay, I got them today and they look really good, still in the original Yamaha plastic sealed bag.
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| Original mirror brackets Yamaha RD125A |
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| Original mirror brackets Yamaha RD125 A 1974 |
