as067

Hi all;

I thought this how-to might be helpful for those who, like me, have waded through dozens of threads on the aero mirror upgrade (most way over my head) but found nothing relative to using 87-95 mirror directional/crossover switches.

This procedure presupposes purchase of the updated 87-95 mirror directional/crossover switches and plug end and using existing wiring to complete the wiring upgrade.

Let's start with the easiest part, mirror wiring (On my '85, I was able to use all existing wiring to complete the mirror wiring itself; it appears that all 80-86 have similar if not exactly the same wiring colors):

Driver side

Mirror side ------------------ Car side

Red & Blue -------------------> White
Black -------------------> Black
White -------------------> Yellow
Brown -------------------> Brown
Brown ------------------> Gray/green

Passenger side

Mirror side ------------------ Car side

Red & Blue -------------------> White
Black ------------------> Black
White ------------------> Blue
Brown ------------------> Brown
Brown ------------------> Gray/green

Polarity does not matter with the browns, gray/greens.

A description of the existing wiring to the old direction/crossover switches you will be replacing:
Again, on my '85, wiring harness into directional switch contains 2 brown, 1 white, 1 black, 1 green (which loops to crossover switch), 1 white/red stripe (power).

Crossover switch: green (from directional switch), yellow, blue.

Additionally, wiring harness contains 3 wires looped between driver side mirror and passenger side mirror, white, black, gray/green. Of these, I did not touch the white or gray/green. The black will be addressed below.

New (87-95) mirror directional switch: Red (pin 2), Brown (pin 4), Yellow/black (pin 3), yellow, green (both loop to new (87-95) crossover switch).

New (87-95) crossover switch: Yellow/green (pin 3), Yellow/red (pin 5), Yellow/blue (pin 4), Yellow/white (pin 6), yellow, green (looped from directional switch).

Here's what needs to be swapped in:

New direction switch:

1. New direction switch red (pin 1) to old direction switch wire white/red;
2. New direction switch brown (pin 4) to old direction switch wire brown (in fact I spliced all browns together);
3. New direction switch yellow/black to old direction switch wire white.

New crossover switch:
1. Cut existing looped black wire (driver side to mirror, passenger side to mirror*) to make two possible connections;
*All these wires are contained in the driver side wiring harness behind the door panel.
2. New crossover switch yellow/green to existing yellow;
3. New crossover switch yellow/red to driver side black (the looped wire that you just cut - one side up to driver side mirror and one side to passenger side mirror)
4. New crossover switch yellow/blue to existing blue;
5. New crossover switch yellow/white to passenger side black (the looped wire that you just cut - one side up to driver side mirror and one side to passenger side mirror).

Again, I did not use the old direction switch black wire at all. I did cut the looped black wire to make the connections indicated. I also did not touch the looped white, gray/green wires (although they are used to complete the mirror connections at the mirrors themselves).

Well, that is what needs to be done. When finished, you will have fully functioning (left/right, up/down) aero/cup mirrors with defrost using your existing wiring plus 87-95 mirror directional/crossover switches (and the appropriate wire harness ends for those switches - plugs are incompatible between old and new switches).

What this will not do is provide memory functions; as one infinitely smarter than I has said, "It's too much work."

Questions, comments, input are welcomed. As I am by no means an electrics expert (as is probably obvious - my skill level is barely above connecting positive to positive and negative to negative), I wrote this little procedure as I would wish to read one with step-by step detail and as much description as possible.

I hope this helps others to upgrade flag mirrors (at least for the 80-86 crowd) to aero mirros with no loss of functionality.

FLYVMO

Great write up, thank you! Any chance you can post some pictures of the connectors/switches in the door with the wires attached?

Cheers!
Carl
90GT project with Aero mirrors and 86.5 door wire harness....and soon ISIS multiplex electrical system!

Podguy

For my 86, I cut away the mirror portion of the 88 wiring harness making a separate harness. It was easy then to retrofit the memory for the mirrors and seats. The memory module mounts easily under the dash. It was really easier than I expected.

Mike Frye

Thanks for the write-up! Very cool and useful. I plan to do this upgrade in the coming year, I'll be bookmarking this one...

Alan

Yes - there are two ways - Use an adapter harness that has a relay in each side OR swap all the switchgear to the S4+ type. Neither way gets you memory features, for that you need to wire a completely new extra harness to both doors and to the (new) controller.

Simple wiring only adaptations will get you heated mirrors that operate in one plane only...

The simplest method is to use the adapters if you can find them, the cheapest method may well be the swapped switchgear esp. with salvaged/used switches.

Nice write-up on how! - be really nice if you could document the stock wire color to Aero mirror wire mapping too?

Alan

as067

Post #1 wire mapping at the mirrors has been edited to be a little less confusing. Initial post deleted my spacing. In any case, in post #1, at the top, left hand column is the aero mirror wiring colors and right hand is the existing car wiring colors (to be attached inside the mirrors themselves).

Sorry, no pics taken, but I can assure that it would be a huge hassle to try to adapt old switch plugs to the new switches; they are very very different. Much easier to pick up used wiring harnesses for the new directional/crossover switches.

Alan

Ahh - OK yes that was hard to see initially. Great.

Do you have any objections to this data being reused and republished elsewhere? (attributed to you by name if you'd like?)

Alan

as067

Feel free to use as you see fit, no credit necessary or desired.

Donald

Thanks REC, I dropped the wires from the (crossover) connector and this was a big help getting it back together.
Did I read the WS manual incorrectly, or does it use the wrong wiring colors?

as067

I take it your '90 has no mirror control unit? (no seat memory, e.g.?) I used Sheet 7 of the wiring diagrams (which I believe are constant in wiring color from 87-95), which matched the crossover switch I purchased for the upgrade. It does seem Sheet 6 (again I believe are constant in wiring color from 87-95) is the sheet you're referring to.

I had to match the Sheet 7 wiring diagram because that's the switch I ended up with; it appears easier with the Sheet 6 wiring diagram; these are clearly marked as to which wires go to which mirror.

Donald

REC:
No, I have the mirror control unit. I went back to the WSM and the way I read it sheet 6 wiring colors are not the same as sheet 7- which has the correct codes for MY90.
Is yours the same, or am I misreading?

as067

I'm not sure what you're asking. By my read, every 87-95 has either a sheet 6 or sheet 7 set-up (it appeared to me that sheet 7 concerns memory functions including seats while sheet 6 did not, hence the different wiring colors).

Forgive me, but you do realize this thread concerns my '85's upgrade to the later models switches; there is nothing similar between my model year and yours in the mirror wiring set-up.

I'm not sure this thread can be helpful to you at all as it doesn't concern existing setups on the 87-95 model years, just the utilization of updated wiring for the early crowd to achieve aero mirror functionality.

Donald

my 87-95 WSM has both sheet 6&7, both sheets have both mirror control & changeover switch; the two sheets' wiring codes do not agree with each other (unless I am missing something).

Your write-up was helpful because it describes the correct color on each pin (87-95) for the changeover switch, as does sheet 7 which had overlooked.

Alan

You either use sheet 6 OR sheet 7 (mutually exclusive) depending on the type of mirrors you have,

Memory mirrors you uses sheet 7 and completely ignore sheet 6 (and vice versa). Obviously the same applies to seats.

Alan

Donald

Thanks Alan-