[taurus6]

I am tired of carrying around 2 remotes. One for garage and one for entry gate at neighborhood. I tried various learning remote duplicators and they don't work. So I am replacing my stock rear view mirror with a Homelink mirror. It learns up to 3 remotes, has digital compass, and auto-dimming. These are available on many new cars, but not ours.


I will be taking some pics and update you guys when finished, what you need, what I broke so far , etc.


When finished I won't have those clunky-ass remotes hanging on my visor any longer.

 

[taurus6]

First few pics. You can see the Homelink mirror is a bit larger than the stock one but when installed is not "in the way" any more than the original. The mirror I got is a Gentex 536. OEM versions are several hundred dollars, but you can get them on eBay for dirt. I paid $53 for mine with free shipping and that included a generic install kit with wiring harness. The 536 is not the only one that works. Any of these will work with 2 considerations - 1. the wiring harness and 2. the mirror mount that is glued to the windshield.

The factory mirror mount would not work with my mirror. I think that some may work depending on what car the mirror was an OEM fit for. The harness is simple. 2 positive wires, 1 ground, and 1 reverse gear wire. Some models vary with temp control wires for sensor, etc. But any can be simply installed without all the extra crap. My kit came with instructions for mounting and wiring. Very simple stuff.

As I mentioned, the stock mirror mount would not work with my mirror. You can find generic mounts in the auto parts stores. Got mine from Advance Auto Parts and it had 3 metal mounts with slight differences. 2 would fit nicely but 1 was perfect. Then some windshield mounting adhesive. Some say not to remove the old mount "button" and to glue the new button on top of the old one. The problem with ours is that the old button does not have a nice, flat top surface to glue to. Check youtube for plenty of videos on how to remove the old button. I used a single torch type butane lighter and a pair of vise grips. Clamped on vise grips, heated JUST THE BUTTON for about 20-30 seconds while check with the vise grips if it was able to twist or not. When it did, that's it, it is off. The seem to have used a cut piece of special rigid 2-sided tape/epoxy and that was left on my glass. It was very easy to gently scrape off with a razor.

Be sure to follow the instructions for the new adhesive. I have had 1st time luck in the past and sometimes had to try 2-3 times when it fell back off while adjusting the mirror. Once done right, it won't move.

I ran the wires down the passenger A-pillar and across the roof to the center. There is a plenty big gap and plenty of play to just tuck the wires up into the front edge of the headliner. The A-pillar trim pops off. There are 2 clips holding it on. One at the top and one midway down. This is where I broke my top clip!!!! Don't pull the trim off toward the seat...pull straight toward the mirror. The clips are angled and pulling toward you/seat will break it. Easy enough to fix though, a wire tie works fine while I wait 2 months to get a new one, just because I want a new one.

I have not done the wiring yet but will keep you updated as that moves along. Wires are just hanging under the dash right now.

To remove the old mirror you will have to pry the Parrot speaker mount from the windshield above the mirror mount. It is like a dab of adhesive or 2-sided tape stuff. Easy to pry off. Then the mirror will slide up and off of its mount. You can push the mount toward the glass and up at the same time. Don't use any tools, they are not needed. There is a spring-loaded plastic button that keeps tension on it. It sits in a divot in the button but will slide right out.

You can see in the pic below that I used a plastic glue to attach the Parrot mount to the wire cover for the new mirror. Those wire covers just pop into place on the mirror frame.

More to come shortly.

 

[taurus6]

Ok, other than putting the passenger foot panel back in place and the center trim piece behind the dash, the install is complete. Firstly, I evidently messed up and thought my mirror had the hidden compass but nope. Not this model. So if you do want the compass be sure which model you order. However, I am still very happy. No more remotes to carry.

A caution when you are moving the plastic trim piece that covers the upper, left mounting bolt for the passenger foot panel. There is a plasic rivet down through the top. No problem. On each side is a washer head torx bolt. These are very, very soft metal. The numbnuts that installed the radar/laser system stripped both of them out. I had to use an easyout tool to get both out. So be careful and use the right bit. The good news is that these bolts and the plastic A-pillar clip I broke are stock items near me and dirt cheap from dealer. Less than $3 for the trim clip. I would have guessed $10-15.

Below are the last of the pics

The first one is how NOT to make a connection for a +12v power source. This again was done by the dimwits who installed the radar/laser system. Note the small black wire with red spade terminal just jammed into a spare fuse opening and not fuse protected. BTW, the fuse location this tapped into is the only empty one that has any power. It is ignition powered, not always on. The fuse location just above this one is also empty but has no internal wiring so it is dead.

The next pic shows a standard ATM fuse tap, available almost anywhere. It holds 2 fuses, one for the original circuit and one for the tap circuit. In this case there was no fuse in this spot but the tap still requires 2 fuses in order to work. I will have 2 loads on this tap. Each is 5 amp. One for radar/laser and the other for the new mirror. So I used a 10 amp main fuse (2 as stated).

Next pic shows what needs to be trimmed for the fuse tap to fit. Just by the "S" in the word SOLO you can see that I had to trim a little notch in the "wall" surrounding the fuses themselves. Nothing structural, nothing will leak, etc. Without trimming this notch (I just folded the notch down out of the way) the tap will not fully engage into the fuse receptacle.

The next pic shows the fuse tap in place and all wired up. Like I said, the tap is 10 amp and is broken down with 2 inline ATM fuses of 5 amp each. Kind of like the way power is normally distributed and plenty safe.

Lastly, a night time view of the new mirror powered up.

Overall, a very useful, inexpensive, yet cool mod!

 

[4Canada]

Thanks for the details and photos, taurus6.
Great contribution to the forum.

 

[rrussell]

Thx


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