Rear view mirror issue

The driver's side rear-view mirror on my Miata started rattling recently. I took a look at it and it looks like it loosened up quite a bit. The whole structure actually wiggles on top of the door. I tried to tighten the screws that I found by turning the assembly in towards the car (the way you do to give the car a narrower profile when parking or at the car wash). These seemed to be pretty tight already--they didn't budge, but I didn't twist them very hard.

What do I need to look at next? I am worried that rust + 244,000 miles + living in New York (potholes galore) may have taken its toll on the poor car and that something inside the door gave up the ghost. Should I just go back to those screws and turn them like crazy? Maybe they loosened up slowly over time, rusted over, and just need a good twist to clamp everything down again? Was I turning the wrong screws?

Thanks!

When I took the stock mirrors off my Miata the spring inside that the mirror pivots on was rusted solid and wouldn't budge, one was broken off inside and rattling. Not sure about the power mirrors but on my manual ones you have to pop off the cover on the base to get to the screws holding them to the door.

Find another car being parted out on Craigslist, preferably the same color. Buy their mirror.

Cage the car and simply run a clamp-on convex mirror? Seems a complex solution to a simple problem, but what can I say. You would potentially pick up some aero benefit from this as well. Oh, and no, I haven't slept in 30+ hours, how'd you guess.

Yikes mistanfo! 30 hours? I've done those days. That's not fun.

So the general consensus is that my mirror is kaput? I'll do some more exploratory work on that later I guess. I've been detailing her for the first time in a long time. Next is scratch removal and wax application.

Oh. I'm listening to some old school E36 M3 right now. Da' Dip. "I'll put my hand up on your hip, when I dip, you dip, we dip! You put your hand up on my hip, when you dip, I dip, we dip!..." Good ol' hip hop.

You could put a mirror like the one I have on it. Just need to make an adapter plate out of aluminum.