This is how I went about installing heated mirrors on my 99 Subaru Legacy GT Limited that came without them.
TOOLS NEEDED:
-12mm Ratcheting Combination Wrench for removing doors.
-Phillips Head Screwdriver.
-Flat Head Screw Driver.
-Plastic trim removal tools (if you don’t want to murder your plastic pieces).
-Soldering Iron (radio shack butane soldering iron! Best $21 bux ever spent!)
-Wire strippers or a good set of teeth if you’re a redneck.
-Hammer for removing door pins. Or beating yourself when you get mad.
-Couple of 2x4’s or other piece of wood to help hold doors up when you take em’ off.
-Lighter for heat shrink tubing.
-A friend or two. The more the better.
Parts needed:
-Heated Mirrors
-Solder (60/40)
-Heat shrink tubing.
-16 gauge wire
-10 gauge wire for helping to pull wire through door boot
-GOOD 3M electrical tape!!
-Male & Female Spade wire connectors.
-C-Style Spade connectors for grounding mirrors out to door under bolt.
Disclaimer: I am not responsible for your screwing anything up. Don’t try to blame me if you hurt yourself, or hurt your car.
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Links you may want to visit / read up:
The one that started this DIY. This has wiring diagrams and TONS of info!:
http://www.sl-i.net/FORUM/viewtopic....16810&p=188855
Other really great links you should DEFINITELY read:
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show....php?t=1163006
http://www.jdmspace.com/DIY/powerfolding.htm
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STARTING THE INSTALL
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Step #1 (removing tweeter cover):
Remove Door Tweeter Cover. There really isn’t much holding this on, so using a flat head screwdriver, or plastic trim removal tool.. pop it off.
Step #2 (disconnecting / removing tweeter):
Remove the tweeter and disconnect its electrical plug harness. The tweeter is held on by 3 plastic tabs. They are pretty tight, so take a flat head screwdriver and pry one up.. then pull the rest using your hands or a screwdriver.
Step #3 (removing door panel screws):
Now that the tweeter is removed, we can begin to remove the door panels.
To remove the door panels, there is 2 plastic circular covers you will need to remove to reveal 2 screws. These plastic covers / screw locations are shown below circled in red. Remove the 2 covers, and 2 screws beneath them.
Then remove the plastic clip (circled in blue).
Step #4 (removing door panels):
Begin to pop the door panel loose by choosing a corner of the door panel and pulling it straight out. Once you get one corner of the door panel popped loose..go around the edge of the door panel until you have popped all the clips lose.
You are now ready to remove the door panel. Carefully lift the door panel off the door by lifting upwards, and pulling towards you. DON’T pull too hard, as there are 3 electrical clips you will need to remove.
The 3 electrical clips are obvious, and you will need to disconnect them before completely removing the door panel. Remove the door panel and place it off to the side. You will also need to do this step to the other door as well.
Step #5 (removing mirrors / door sill plastic pieces):
Your door panels should now be removed and you will be able to unbolt your stock non-heated mirrors.
Behind the mirrors are 3 screws holding them in place. Undo these 3 screws, unclip the mirrors electrical connectors, and remove the mirrors.
The picture below shows what one of the 3 screws holding the mirror in place looks like. The other 2 are below the door panel, and this is why you need to remove the door panel first before removing the mirrors.
To remove the door sill plastic pieces you will need to pop out one trim fastener (plastic) and then pull straight up on the door sill plastic pieces with a flat head screwdriver. Be careful.. as the plastic tabs on these door sill pieces like to break very easy!
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PREPARING YOUR NEW HEATED MIRRORS FOR INSTALL:
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On your new heated mirrors there should be 2 different connectors (circled in red). One large one, and one small one as seen in the picture below.
You will need to cut the smaller connector off (circled in blue) since you will be wiring new wires to this.
This 2 pin connector that you will be cutting off (circled in blue) is for the heating element inside of the mirror and will later be wired to the rear defrost switch, and grounded out to the door (since there are 2 wires per mirror).
Step #6 (wiring ground wire c-style spade connector):
Since one of these wires needs to be grounded to the door, you can now wire some type of C-style spade connector to one of the wires coming off the mirror harness that you just cut.
In the picture below it shows I used a full circular style connector to go around the screw. This wont work and you will need to use a C-Style Spade connector instead of the full circular connector. DO NOT USE FULL CIRCLE CONNECTOR!
It does not matter which wire you use from the mirror as both of the wires should be black and it does not matter which you use since one of the wires coming from the mirror will be Neg (-) and one will be Pos (+). The heating element does not care, as long as you have one of each per mirror.
Once you have wired up a connector that can go under / around the screw, you should be good to go.
The screw I used for grounding out the mirror heating element is shown in the picture below circled in red. This picture shows both the connector I wired up, as well as the hole where the screw was removed where this Neg (-) wire will now be grounded out.
In the picture it shows that I used a full circular connector, however THIS TYPE OF CONNECTOR WON’T WORK! You will need to use a C-Style spade connector to go under the bolt that screw into the door and grounds this wire out. I took these pictures before realizing this, and had to re-wire with a different style connector.
Here is the type of connector I used for the ground wire to connect to the door:
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Step #7 (re-installing mirrors to door):
Now that you have both mirrors wired up with the C-Style spade connector which will go around/under the bolt in the door, you can install the mirrors back onto the doors.
Re-install the mirrors using the 3 screws you removed previously to hold them in place.
There should still be one loose wire coming from the heating element on the mirror.. as one is the ground NEG (-) wires, and the other POS (+) will be wired to the rear defrost switch.
Step #8 (checking everything over):
You should now have both heated mirrors installed on the doors and have the ground connector(s) wired up to each of the mirrors.
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REMOVING DOORS & RUNNING WIRING:
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Okay. It’s now time to run some wire through the doors.
Because of the way I decided to do this (using the rear defrost button), you only need to run ONE wire in each of the doors (POS +).
I ran 2 however, just in case at a later point in time I want to use the heated switch (mirror switch w/defrost button) and wire it to a relay / fuse block at the foot-wells.
For now however, I chose to wire it to the rear defrost button, as this has a timer and will not require buying a Subaru relay and doing extra wiring.
The wire I used contains 2 wires inside of it (black and red) in ONE wire.. that way later if I want to change anything.. I can. I probably wont though.
In order to run the 2 wires through the door / door boot without killing yourself from insanity, it will be necessary to remove the doors themselves.
This WILL require the help of a friend and a couple of 2x4’s or some other piece of wood to rest the doors on and get them to the right height. This is the EASIEST way to do it and only takes about 10 minutes per door.
TIP: I recommend using a 12mm ratcheting combination wrench. This makes it 100x easier to remove the door bolts!
Step #9 (Removing the doors):
-Remove the 4 Bolts located on the 2 door hinges, and then remove the pin holding the door as shown below.
TIP: When removing the bolts from the door hinges always start from the bottom bolt and work your way to the top. Leave the top bolt in however before popping the door pin, then remove the very top bolt after the pin has been removed.
Start on bolt #1 then move to bolt #2. This will disconnect the bottom hinge.
Then move up to bolt #3 on the upper hinge, and finally before removing bolt #4 (top most bolt) pop the door pin out. Then remove bolt #4 which will be the very top bolt on the upper door hinge.
This picture shows the bottom 2 bolts you will start on:
Here you can see the upper 2 bolts have been removed, as well as the door pin, which has been removed.
Step #10 (Running the wiring through the doors/ door boots):
The doors should be off your car at this point in time and hopefully leaning somewhere safe up against the car. Or in my case, having a friend hold them while I ran the wiring through the door boots.
You should cut off about 5 feet of wiring to run through the doors. More is better as you can always cut it off.
-Remove the door boot from both the car, and the door. This will allow you to run the wiring easily.
-Run the wiring from the inside of the door through the door boot and then into the passenger compartment.
TIP: If you are having trouble getting the wire through the door boot you can always run a thick piece of wire (10 gauge) through the boot first, then tape the wire you are running to the thick wire.. and pull it through. You CAN use a coat hanger as well.. but I found that they were too stiff and can also potentially pop a hole in your door boot.
This image shows the white wire being ran through the door, through the door boot, and later will be ran into the passenger compartment once the boot is hooked back up:
Step #11 (wiring placement):
Run the other end of the wire back into the passenger compartment and hook the door boot back up to both the door and the passenger compartment hole.
TIP: Make sure to seat the door boot properly! It may take a few minutes to get it right.. but GET IT RIGHT! You will need to have someone help you with this as they will have to be holding the door while you are connecting the boot back up.
Step #12 (re-bolting the door back up):
Now its time to re-bolt the door back up to the car.
Start by connecting the door hinge pin.
Then connect the very top most bolt (Bolt #4 in the pictures above). Then bolt #3, then #2, then #1.
TIP: Before you tighten all the bolts for the door down, make sure the door closes properly, and that the door lines are LINED UP properly. You may need to do some adjusting, and this is when having a friend will come in VERY handy. It may take a few tries to get the door back lined up.. but keep trying.. you will get it! The bottom 2 bolts control the adjustment of the door and will have minor play in them in order for you to line the doors up proper.
Step #13 (wiring the door wire you just ran to the mirror):
Like I said in the beginning of this wiring segment, I ran 2 wires in each of the doors.
However, you will only be connecting ONE of the wires to the mirror for the POS (+) connection since you have already grounded the mirrors out to the door (-).
-Take one of the wires you ran in the door and solder a male ‘spade connector’ to it.
-Wire the female ‘spade connector’ to the remaining wire on the mirror for the heating element.
You should only have 1 wire left on the mirror heating element at this point in time since the other wire coming from the mirror heating element has already been grounded out to the door (-). This is the one you will be putting the female ‘spade connector’ on.
Using these ‘spade connectors’ will allow you to remove the mirror easily and quickly if you ever have to take them off. The spade connectors I used look like this:
These are the type of spade connectors I used:
Step #14 (removing gauge cluster plastic piece & 3 buttons):
You will need to remove the gauge cluster plastic outer piece in order to get enough slack on the rear defrost wiring harness in order to wire the 2 POS (+) wires from the mirror heating elements. These are the 2 wires you just ran in the doors and connected to each mirror. 1 per side. POS (+) wires.
-Remove the fog light, rear defrost and cruise control buttons. These have tabs on the bottom / sides of them, so be careful taking them out. If you can’t get them out at first, you can always remove the gauge cluster outer plastic piece first and then pop them out / disconnect them.
-Remove the 4 screws on the gauge cluster plastic piece in order to remove it from the gauge cluster area. 2 screws are on the top, and 2 are on the bottom of this plastic outer piece surrounding the gauge cluster. Completely remove this from the dash. It should now look like the following picture (I plugged the buttons back in):
Step #15 (snaking wires from each door to behind the dash):
This is the fun part. By fun.. I mean it will hurt your back.. and probably your neck a little bit. LOL.
-Run the wires from each door (POS +) to the back of where the rear defrost button harness comes up from. Use a flashlight and snake the wires in a SAFE manner up behind the dash. Use zip ties, electrical tape.. or whatever you want to secure them in a SAFE fashion.
TIP: Using a flashlight from the rear defrost button area will help you snake the wires up with ease. Make sure on the drivers side to keep the wires AWAY from the foot area and AWAY from the steering column area. At this point in time I should say that I am NOT responsible if you are stupid and don’t secure these wires properly and crash due to wires tangling your feet / steering wheel / column up. If that’s even possible.
Once you have ran both wires up to the rear defrost button area you can now trim the wires to an acceptable length and make sure you have pulled all the slack in the lines through the dash area.
Step #16 (merging both POS (+) wires from mirrors into 1 POS (+) wire):
-Take the POS (+) wires you ran from each mirror up through the rear defrost switch area and solder them to a Y connection.
Basically what you are doing is connecting both POS (+) wires from the left and right mirrors and turning them into 1 POS (+) wire that will connect to the rear defrost switch harness.
It will look like this after you have soldered both POS (+) wires together from each mirror into 1 POS (+) wire:
Step #17 (connecting the merged POS (+) wires to the rear defrost button harness):
-Plug rear defrost button back into wiring harness coming from car in order to make SURE you are looking at the right wiring harness.
-On rear defrost wiring harness LOCATE the RED wire w/the BLUE stripe. It will look like this:
-Strip a small 1” section of this RED w/BLUE stripe wire.
TIP: You can either use a small VERY SHARP razor blade, or do what I did and use a lighter to crack the plastic surrounding the wire and then peel it back VERY carefully. You get ONE shot at this!! DO NOT FUCK UP or you will be in some serious SHIT! DON’T FORGET YOUR HEATSHRINK TUBING LIKE I DID!
-Connect the newly merged POS (+) wire to the Red w/BLUE stripe wire on the rear defrost wiring harness. DON’T FORGET YOUR HEATSHRINK TUBING LIKE I DID!
Once you have connected / soldered the POS (+) wire to the Red w/BLUE stripe wire it should look something like this:
Step #18: HAVE A BEER! OR 2..OR 6!
You just completed your heated mirror install. Now you just have to put everything back together after making sure everything works proper.
TEST everything to make sure the wires / mirrors work before buttoning everything back up.
You can do what I did and put some snow on the mirrors and watch them melt it off.. or spray some water on them.. or hell.. you should just be able to FEEL the heat after a couple minutes!
Please MAKE SURE that the wiring running under your dash is secure. This is very important!!! You don’t want to get into an accident because of some stupid wires. If you ran the wires properly in the first place, you shouldn’t have to do much securing since under the dash is pretty limited for space and if you ran the wires proper they should be held in place by all the other crap under the dash.
Step #19 (Buttoning everything back up):
-Test everything out before putting stuff back together!
-Put gauge cluster trim back in place
-Put buttons back in gauge cluster trim.
-Put door panels back on
-Screw door panels back in.
-Re-Attach Door Sill plastic pieces
-Have another beer!
CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE NOW OFFICIALLY DONE!
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