Knowledge Base

Installing retracting mirrors whilst keeping them heated

Needed:
- Pair of JDM retracting wing mirrors (any colour).
- JDM door switch unit with retract button.
- Mirror retract relay.
- M6 nut for retract relay (or Toyota part #90179-06100)
- Connector for retract relay (the connector that plugs into the blue headlight relay is the same - but I don't know if it uses the same amount of pins/wires).
- Coloured wiring (having different colours is optional, but it helps).
- Electrical tape.
- New mirror screws (in case your old ones don't come out easily) (Toyota part #90149-50051, there's 6 of them).

Tools:
- Cross-head screwdriver.
- Wire strippers/cutters.
- Soldering iron + solder (optional).
- A tool for threading wire (old wire coat hanger should do).
- Dremel or similar (in case your mirror screws don't come out easily).

What you DON'T need:
- JDM retract door looms (unlike adding retract mirrors to a JDM car, on a UK car this is much easier using the existing door looms).

First, remove your door cards. This link is a superb guide for doing so -
http://www.turbomr2.com/MR2/HowTo/Door%20Panel/DoorPanel_PG1.htm

Next, remove your wing mirrors.
Remove these 3 screws (bare in mind that these screws are coated with Loctite so may need heating up)

If the cross-headed screws get chewed up, you can use a Dremel to cut a groove across it and use a flat bladed screwdriver. If you have trouble getting your Dremel to the screws whilst on the car, you can easily remove the mirror & bracket completely (the 3 cross-head screws still need to be removed though) - this bracket is held onto the door with 3 hex-bolts. Also, don't forget to unplug the tweeter and 5-pin mirror connector.

Now remove the mirror glass from all mirrors by pulling outwards from the bottom of the mirror. The photo below shows the clips at the bottom of the glass in green, and the hooks at the top in purple.

Remove the connector for the heater element on the UK mirror glass.

Remove the insides from all mirror casings. Undo the 4 screws below in each mirror.

Remove the loom intact from the UK mirrors - the 5-pin connector is too big to fit through the hole in the metal triangular part. So we have to unplug the 2 small connectors that control the mirror position (NOTE: remember which connector goes to which part of the mirror position motor, you don't want your mirror glass moving up/down when you press left/right on the door unit). You may find this easier to do if you remove the mirror position motor from the bracket.

At this point you should have all mirrors disassembled and a pair of UK mirror looms. Now you need to add these looms onto the JDM mirror internals.

Remove the mini-connectors from the mirror position motor as you did with your UK mirrors. To remove these 3 wires (black, white and red) from the mirror assembly you need to unclip the folding motor plastic cover.

Then undo 2 small screws that hold a circuit board to the folding motor. Now you can feed the small connectors from the mirror position motor out through the centre of the folding motor unit.
Note: if the mini-connectors are too big to fit down the centre (I'm unsure as my initial installation involved cutting the wires!!). So if they're too big, you can use a thin screw driver in the 5 or 7 pin connector to 'push' the wires out, then feed through the centre of the folding motor - then push the wires back into the connector (remembering which wire went where!).

Now install the connectors & wires from your UK mirror in the same way as you just removed the JDM wires. Also, install the heater glass connector & wire this way too (making sure you've got enough fed through to allow the connector to be attached to the glass - pic below). Attach the relevant connectors to the mirror position motor, and re-attached this motor to the bracket via the 4 screws.

Replace the folding motor cover.

Now the unit can be attached to your UK mirror casing (or JDM casing if it's the correct colour for your car).

The JDM 7-pin connector is now useless to us. It should have the 3 mirror position wires (white, red & black) that aren't connected to anything now, and the 4 wires for the folding motor (blue, green, brown & yellow). The 4 folding motor wires can now be cut from the connector.
In the photo below, ignore the joins I have in my 5 wires to the UK connector - this is because I originally started the installation using JDM 7-pin connectors and JDM door looms - a plan I scrapped after realising it's easier keeping the UK parts.

We now need to extend the 4 wires from the folding motor. I extended them so they'd follow the main door loom all the way to the A-pillar, so around 125cm should do. How you extend these wires is up to you: connector blocks or soldering or crimping etc. I soldered them in my installation. Once extended, I put a covering over the wires, similar to what Toyota do to most of their wiring, in fact I used wire heat shrink - but didn't apply any heat.

After that, the mirrors are ready to go back on the doors (using new screws if necessary), and don't forget the sponge that goes behind the tweeter.

Now remove the front part of the door looms. Remove the foot trim from along the sill - it's just held on with several poppers, and the part inside the foot well has a plastic screw cover thing.

Disconnect the door loom plugs (2 plugs at each A-pillar).

With the door looms disconnected, carefully feed them out of the car and through the door. On the drivers side you'll find it easier to unscrew the bonnet release catch (it's just 2 screws). We just need enough of the loom available to enable us to thread our new wires (for the folding motors) through inside the grommets. You'll need to unplug the main speaker connector that's inside the door just above the speaker.

On the drivers door loom, we need to add a new wire for the retract button. I was lucky in that I had an old broken JDM door loom, so I removed the wire from that (the infamous pink wire) and it simply pushed into the back of the UK connector. This goes into the front-most of the 2 connector blocks for the window/mirror switch unit.

This pink wire also had to be secured along the door loom and threaded through the grommets.

Below is a photo of threading a couple of wires through from an early installation (although this is from an early installation attempt, the final one was a little more difficult due to the 4 wires plus covering).

Now you can re-install the door loom through to the A-pillar. Don't forget to plug the speaker back in unlike me!!

Now install the mirror retract relay. You'll need to remove the panel underneath the steering wheel, just 4 screws at each corner, followed by unplugging your foglight buttons etc.

Then remove the lower part of the air duct that is now in view - just one screw on the right.

If you look up, you'll see there's a place for this relay to go next to an existing one. Here's how it looks once fitted.

Now the final hurdle, attaching your wires to the retract relay. Using some lengths of wire I made my own loom and attached this to the connector that I had for the relay (pic below). The loom I made, had 4 wires long enough to go from the retract relay to the passenger A-pillar, 5 wires (4 for retract motor, and 1 for retract button) long enough to the drivers A-pillar, then 2 more for the live and earth.

Here is a photo of my loom connected at the passenger A-pillar. Note that it's only loosely attached to existing wires, just so it doesn't flap about or get tangled in your passenger's feet!!

To know which wire from the mirror goes to which wire on the relay connector, follow the diagram below (paying particular attention to the wire colours as you'll see that brown wire in pin 4 is actually greener than the 'green' wire!!).

Here is my drivers A-pillar before joining up the wires. Note that when creating my new loom and extending the wires from the retract motors, I didn't have the correct coloured wire - but I used coloured tape to avoid getting them mixed up.

Now, to sort the power, I attached the wire for the live to the cigar lighter, and the place I used for earth is circled below (it's the screw hole that the trim panel uses). Also, once connected up, make sure you secure the wires so that they don't get in the way of the foot pedals.

And this is the ring type crimp I used on the earth wire to enable me to use the screw hole.

That's all. Hopefully now you'll have folding mirrors.