HOW TO: Installing yodaTEQ's mirror mount plus a lot of other useless mods to waste your time (1 Viewer)

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NLXTACY

Wits' End
Joined
Dec 7, 2007
Threads
200
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23,013
Location
Medford, OR
@yodaTEQ 's side mirror mount was just one of those things that I knew was a good idea. I planned on something kinda sorta similar but Frank took it into a direction that works better than I was going to do. So purchase was an easy thing.

I had planned for a long time all of the things that I wanted to do with the side mirrors and like EVERYTHING else I do, I gathered all of the components for the project over an extended period of time. I had no idea when I would actually get to it...if ever.

My plan for the mirrors include:

The following, lengthy, write-up will explain:
  • How I am doing the install?
  • Why I am adding certain components?
  • Links to various mods?
  • Stuff I considered but changed my mind on?
  • Questions I have on finishing up the mod and then working on the other side since I'm still in the middle of this.

I wanted to at least start the writing since there is a lot involved and there are a LOT of pics.

Below you see the hard work that Frank's daughter put into the marketing and packaging of the mirror mounts. I don't think her effort should go unappreciated so I'm posting up a few pics so we can all see what you get when the box arrives. You can find the link to purchase here:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/group-buy-yodateq-front-mirror-mount-brackets.813412/

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Here you can see the driver's side mount. (Note the laser'd "D"). Nevermind a couple of my other projects in the background ;)

First step really is to remove your mirror. I started with the PS mirror only because I knew this learning experience would not culminate before the end of the day. In fact I've been driving without a PS mirror for almost two weeks now trying to figure everything out.

Removing the mirror is fairly simple. You need to remove the corner plate on the inside front of the door. This plate is held in by two clips and a ball-n-socket. It made me nervous taking this off since I wasn't sure how to remove it or how it was secured. Now its no big deal, pry towards the center with a small screwdriver to get the socket to release the ball mount.

You will see three 10mm bolts. These of course come off and you may wind up using these OR you may make your life easier and find a set that are a few mm longer. I have a fairly thorough interior bolt kit so its easy on my end. Once the bolts are removed the mirror needs to be coaxed out, it doesn't want to just fall out. But before doing that you want to go under the mirror, and with a small phillips driver, remove the mirror retaining screw. This screw allows you to remove the mirror glass from the housing. Once the screw is out just lift up from the bottom of the mirror and it will just fall out. There are three wires that power the mirror. On a 97 its RED, BROWN, TAN. In the EWD its listed as GREEN, YELLOW, WHITE. Dunno. Anyhow, get a thin sharpie and MARK the colors on the back of the mirror mount near the wires so that you don't confuse which wires go where. Trust me it will make things much less frustrating later. Remove these three wires and pull the wire loom back thru the mirror down the bottom of the mirror housing. Now you can safely remove the mirror housing from the door. You basically just need to wiggle the mirror housing back and forth but it will come out. There is a small triangle shaped gasket, don't ruin or toss it.


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First step was getting the mirror apart from the backing its mounted to. Why even take it off at all? Well, I wanted heated mirrors. Why do I want heated mirrors? Why the hell not?! During winter the side mirrors are constantly fogged up. When I do snow traveling they are always iced up. Now I had an opportunity to inexpensively add heated mirrors.

I followed one of threads here about the heating element for the mirror. I selected the same model that @SeanAndHis80 did on this thread: https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/heated-rearview-mirrors-finished.268442/

I went to Mirror Glass Plus and got the Burco 3801: http://mirrorglassplus.com/small-burco-redi-heat-universal-heat-grid/

In hindsight, I should have found a set that were larger. As you can see this only covers barely half of the mirror.

After reading online I found a few Youtube videos that detailed how to remove the glass. It seems all manufacturers are pretty similar in this regard and Toyota was no different which I found unusual since I anticipated some ultra heave duty mounting solution. First order of business was to heat up the plastic edge of the mirror to soften it up just enough to move out of the way to allow the glass to pop out. Or at least an edge to pop out because there is double stick mastic/tape holding the glass on. I just used a hair dryer and that was sufficient to heat up the edges.

I tried the dental floss trick it wasn't quite enough to get through the adhesive. So I used some tongue depressors I had handy and just wedged them in SLOOOOOOWLY but deliberately as to NOT break the glass. It took some work but the glass will eventually come off. The mastic/adhesive needs to come off if you want the heated element to stick properly. So this means soaking the mirror in hot/soapy water to soften it. Then peel it off best you can. I then used a Mr. Clean sponge to remove the vast majority of the remaining adhesive. DON'T scratch the glass at all costs. It will drive you nuts looking at a scratch when using the mirrors later. Just don't scratch it.

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When deciding where to mount the heater element you need to be mindful of the location of the lead terminals. They will need to stick straight up (the way they come form the factory) so you will need to drill two slotted holes to let the terminals poke thru the back side. Because the mirror mounts on a motorized gimble, there is a chance the leads could be compromised. So make sure the lead placement gives enough room for the mirror motor's movement. You can see where I picked my spots. I drilled two holes using a dremel and then slotted them slightly because the terminal leads have a step to them and you need to be able to get the whole lead thru. Don't worry about the lead touching the sides of the mirror mount, its plastic and non-conductive :flipoff2:

Once you have the holes drilled just test fit the heated element. Fit good? Then go ahead and stick it on. Start on the side with the terminals and just work your way back. You don't want air holes or else that will an area that isn't heated evenly with the rest of the pad. Also, if you find you may need to remove the heated element because you goofed, well consider just getting another element because this is not meant to be repositioned. the pathways are delicate and can break. If this happens you could be left with either a half working element or a non-working one. If you are unsure that it is still golden after you stick it down, use a multimeter on the beep setting. Just touch the both leads. If there is continuity then you are good. No continuity? Well, peel it off and start from scratch. This did not happen to me but just explaining in case it does happen to you.

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Now it was time to get the glass mounted back onto the mount. Since I removed all of the mastic/adhesive I needed something to replace it with. I considered just using another off the shelf mastic product that others online used. I instead opted for a couple of strips of 3M VHB adhesive tape. If its good enough to hold sheets of glass on high rise buildings then its good enough for my stupid mirror.

I did NOT want to coat the entire backing with the tape. The tape works extremely well, is pliable, will not shrink and lasts forever. I used small strips because just in case I need to get back in there I can do so easily by just cutting away these few strips. I picked the highest elevation for placement of the strips and then peeled off the backing.

Next step was to heat up the edges again so that the lip will "roll" enough to allow the glass to pop back in. A few mins with the hair dryer was all that was needed. I started on one side making sure the edge was securely locked into place then just worked my way out. The glass popped in and all was right with the world. I pressed the backing onto the glass to be sure the VHB tape was actually getting adhered to the mirror.

Next up, I made a pigtail that was 10ft. long using 14AWG cable. Burco supplies the mini spade terminals so I used those and crimped and adhesive shrink wrapped. This overall mod is ready for wiring but I'm not quite there yet.


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Now its time to make room for all of the wires. You can get away with going with smaller openings if you don't use wire sheathing or if you use one sheathing for all of the new wiring. I didn't. I wanted each component to be sheathed and sheathed separately. This means I needed to pay more attention to the size of the openings.

For the PS mirror I needed to make sure I had enough room to supply wiring for the heated element, the courtesy LED, the CB antenna, the LED camping lights and the turn signal light. This is all new stuff that I now had to make room for. This occurs in three steps:

Step 1: The plastic piece surrounding the three mounting threads needs to be trimmed back to make sure there is enough room to route the new wires. Your application will be specific to your needs so there isn't a set size. Just bundle up the wires you need and start experimenting with the size.

Step 2: The pass-thru on the moulded aluminum hinge needs to be hogged out. I used a Dremel with a side cutting bit for all the cutting needed. This part took a bit of time to make sure all the wiring could pass thru. There is a fair amount of material on both sides so I wasn't too concerned about strength. Eventually I got the slot widened where I needed. I also knocked down the edges so that were no sharp spots to get hung up on the wires.

Step 3: the pass thru where the original three wires go into the housing itself. Because I was adding two new sets of wires I needed to make sure all of the wires would fit. They didn't so I grabbed the largest drill but I had (5/8") and widened the hole at the top. I then sprayed silicone spray onto the new wire's sheathing and the old wire loom. With a little effort I could get all three wire sets thru.


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You of course need to remove the door panel to actually complete the wiring necessary for this mod. Removing the door panel means:
  • Taking off the screw that holds the handle/door lock panel on
  • Remove the handle/door lock panel
  • Removing the leather arm rest
  • Removing the two large phillips screws
  • Removing and disconnecting the door switch panel
  • Removing the door panel itself carefully
  • Disconnecting the door light
  • Lifting the door panel up and off the door
If you are going to Dynamat the door, now is the time. If you are going to rock @musthave 's new door panels, now is the time. If you are going to fix the door lock actuator, now is the time. If you are going to replace the door runs, now is the time.

Since I've already repaired my door lock actuator and I've already done my doors in Dynamat and already did the speakers, I instead will replace the door runs. I purchased my set of door runs from @Akella

The door runs was actually MUCH easier than I imagined. Pulling it off was just grabbing a corner and yanking. Out in three seconds. My runs were actually still in very good condition. They weren't as soft and pliable as the new ones but these were not cracked or rock hard. I could have gone without doing these but since I'm here. Putting them in means starting from the shaped corner and just pushing the run/seal into the slot. Its that easy. Getting the runs down the side of the window took some gentle pushing and a liberal dousing of silicone spray but it went down. I did have to wiggle the window front to back to get the seal inched down. For the last few inches I just used a set of needle nose pliers and just pulled the seal the rest of the way. Very little effort. Maybe ten minutes in total. If that. YMMV.

I'm also using this opportunity to add back the vapor barrier that came with the truck. When i added the Dynamat I needed to cut away the original barrier. Well I want the vapor barrier back so I will be installed after everything is all dialed in. Just wanted to make mention of it.


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SWEET! I've added this to my long list of projects.
 
Next up, the wire routing. I cut about 10ft of wire for each mod to make sure I had enough to get to the dash/console. The flying leads on the camping light were only about a foot long so I needed to either using a butt connector or add a connector. Well this is where is dawned on me that I should be using connectors for all of the mods on this and they should all be in the door. I started with the camping light and I will make connectors for the other items too. Most likely I will use some type of Molex connector. To be determined. I have not make the other connection points as of yet, yet the camping light.

Anyway, I routed all of the wires into the mirror housing to get everything dialed in. This part can be tough working by yourself late a night so I recommend a helper. My helper was fast asleep and he has a test in the morning so I wasn't about to wake him. I could have asked my wife but she doesn't want to be part of my shenanigans. :flipoff2:

At this point all of the wires were routed to their final resting point. I had the mirror controls, heater and turn signal wiring all going thru the housing. I had those wires plus the courtesy LED, Antenna and camping LED routed down at the hinge. This meant opening up the little slot in the plastic piece to allow the wires to go thru.

I then started routing the wires thru the @yodaTEQ mount and finally down the cable slot on the door. Now that I was reasonably sure everything was golden, I applied the new gasket material supplied by Frank and started buttoning everything together. This sounds easier than it was. It took me adjusting holes, taking on-off the mirror, routing wires, pushing wires, greasing wires, getting pissed off, drinking heavily until I finally got everything where it needed to be. It was not a one shot deal. It took awhile to massage everything into place.

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Added a few more pics to illustrate what I was talking about. This is the plastic piece found under the mirror that I had to open up to get a few more wire to go thru.
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Here you can see the three mini-spade wires that control the motor up top. in the middle right are the wires for the heated element. At the lower right you can see the wires for the turn signal.
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This gives you a better view of how the wires will be routed under the hinge. Its really tight in there but as long as you cut out enough material it will all fit.
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Here it is all wired up and ready to go.
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With the camping LED light mounted and mirror back in position. I need to figure out an anti-theft measure for the light. Its just a nut holding it on.

A coupe of notes: Frank is recommending installing the bracket only with the gasket overnight so that it can compress the gasket first. He is also making sure you do NOT over-tighten the three bolts that hold the mirror in place.

For what its worth, I found it easier to get at least two slightly longer bolts on the two bottom. This aided in the gasket compression.

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Ok last post because its as far as I got with the install for now. This is the door pass-thru that I got. Purchased a few of them and will be using for other mods as well. I don't any any more info yet because this is literally where I am. As I get further along I will be posting up.
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when you say turn signal lights, do you mean the mod where you put a dual filament bulb in the corner markers up front?

I keep meaning to do that. have the donor harnesses already.
 
Everything about the heated mirror gig is easy. Except for getting wires through to the door.
 
I guess that would just require removing existing harnesses from the door.

have fun on the driver side.
 
I guess that would just require removing existing harnesses from the door.

have fun on the driver side.

Not at all. I just need to drill a hole in the door and a hole in the jam, pop in the new piece and call it a day. I now have a new wire run. Can't see why the DS would be any different. I'm just duplicating what is already there.
 

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