Napoleon Mirror Adapter Has a Reverse Thread: Removing Ridge Mirrors from a BMW G650GS

Hello everyone.

Today's post is about the mirrors on my BMW G650GS.
My G650GS has Napoleon Ridge mirrors (by Tanax, a Japanese brand). I really like them.

This time I needed to take them off, and I want to note down what I learned (or rather, what I'd forgotten).

This is the Napoleon Ridge mirror fitted to my G650GS.

The Ridge mirror hides its bolt under a trim cap, so take that off first.
The cap is partly for looks, but I think it also keeps rain out and stops water sitting in the hex socket and rusting the bolt.

It's held by an 8 mm hex socket bolt. When I tried to undo it by turning it anticlockwise, it felt wrong...

This bolt has a left-hand (reverse) thread

The mirror adapter takes a 17 mm spanner, so hold it with that and turn the hex bolt clockwise to loosen it.

You can see a notch cut into the top of the mirror adapter. This marks a reverse thread.

The clutch lever side is reverse-threaded too.

This mirror adapter has a normal thread on the bike side and a reverse thread on the mirror side.
My guess is that this lets the threads give way whichever direction the mirror is pushed in a fall. It also means the same part can be used on both sides, which keeps the cost down.

In the end I managed to swap back to the standard mirrors.

To be honest, until I realised it was a reverse thread, I was getting a bit worried that the bolt wouldn't come out!

If you're removing Napoleon mirrors, check online or reread the instructions first.

I've written about stopping mirror vibration in this article.