Red paint peeling

Don’t go at the mirror backs with a screwdriver or anything of that ilk use broad bladed paint scrapers to open a few inches, top bottom & end. Judicial tweaking around the three should dislodge the clips but as with so many things made of ageing plastic - - - -  the back should part company without any great disasters. Gently but with purpose.
I don’t recall any great problem with the handles; as always follow the manual & be methodical. Ensure you have the correct tools before you start, I seem to recall needing a 10mm socket (1/4”drive) on a long extension. 
There will be the inevitable blood sacrifice as you unclip the rods, look upon this as an omen for success.
M

The colour coded back is NOT removeable, it is an integral part of the mirror. The black plastic surround is removed with the careful prying described.
To remove the painted part you will need to remove the entire mirror assembly.   

There is a how to in the list for more info/pictures. How to

I stand corrected & apologies!
There was no intention to mislead, I can’t recall which rear view mirror I was thinking about. I was in both left & right mirrors comparatively recently to attend to a wiring mod & now In light of this & with further consideration it must have been the glass I removed
Having looked at the pictures supplied by David, it is obvious how wrong I was.
Again I apologise.
Maybe I should observe whilst away & I’m not in a position to wander out to look at the car.
M

Not an issue, matey. I only know because I went into my mirror repair many (14!)years ago with the same thought that the painted back must come off.

On the positive side your comment made me look at my old 'how to' to confirm my memory, and realise the photos had vanished. 
luckily, being a bit of a packrat, I had kept the nightfire red mirror ( never know when that will come in handy!), so I was able to make new 'how to' pics to complete the old 'how to'. 

I have, in the past, been critical of the purveyors of duff information & to find I’m involved in the same caper is a right bugger.
It’s to be hoped that no one has shot out to the car & made a shit show on the back of my poor memory.
M

Cant knock a guy who steps up and owns his mistake, we are all subject to it at some time or others, it's the admitting we have made a mistake that isn't always that common.

Airportable wrote:

I have, in the past, been critical of the purveyors of duff information & to find I’m involved in the same caper is a right bugger.
It’s to be hoped that no one has shot out to the car & made a shit show on the back of my poor memory.
M

 

If you had a left bugger you would have the set!

As my father always said “The man who never made a mistake never made anything “

I paint my mirrors and door handles recentley in flame red as they were badly faded.  The door mirrors are attached with a couple of screws and are easy to remove, you also need to remove the doorcard and disconnect the heated mirror plug.  The doorhandles a a bit fiddly and I found an excellent post with pictures in the how to guides on this forum to be able to remove them.  I used masking tape in the mirrors rather than taking them apart and then rubbed down the red with 400 grit sandpaper and then 800 grit wet and dry, three coats of plastic primer, then red and then laquer and they came out great.

Thank you Rob, that was several orders of magnitude more useful than my “contribution”.
M

Though I'd share my views on this topic as I haven't posted on here for a fair while. Earlier this summer I took my TF off on a little road trip to Lake Garda in Italy . Whilst passing through the numerous Toll  booths I unfortunately got far too close to one and scraped a huge amount of paint off the passenger side mirror back, on a rusty bracket that was protruding out from said booth and had no purpose whatsoever in being there other than to mark sticky outie bits of a car! On return to the UK I set about removing the entire mirror head to see if I could manage a decent rattle can spray job. 
The result of my attempt was excellent even though I say so myself. At this point if I were to give advice on this topic I would say my only concern was to obtain a good match to the Firefrost red of my TF. I took the mirror head to a local paint supplier Carlac ( other specialist companies are available) who are good at this sort of job. My only other concern was having to leave the mirror head with them for a couple of days for them to match the paint, as there is always a chance that it could have been lost. I bought three large rattle cans of primer, colour and lacquer , plus some 1200 and 1500 grit wet and dry. Another tip would be to get plenty of all three coatings on and let them fully dry overnight whilst also flatting down between coats.  The finish I achieved was so good it put the other mirror back to shame but I'll be leaving that job for overwinter when the car is sorned. 
John