Installing JDM Civic folding mirrors
Over in Japan the standard issue mirror for modern Civics included motors inside the mirror base to fold them in for tight parking spaces. Pretty cool stuff but not really a necessity for us folks to the east. So this is strictly an appearance modification, obviously.
I did this installation on my '94 Civic Si. I already had power adjustable mirrors, so a lot of the necessary wiring was already there. If you don't have power adjustable mirrors already, you will need to get a power mirror relay along side the equipment for the JDM folding mirrors. This instructions will work for just about any Civic/Integra with the JDM folding mirrors, the wire colors MAY be different but the pin-outs will still be similar. The procedure will be the same too. Although, if you are curious about your wiring and want to be absolutely sure go pick up a Helms. Even little Haynes manuals have wire diagrams.
This install was done with the JDM folding
mirror relay (see the picture below), and the JDM folding mirror switch.
It is possible to make this work without the OEM relay, although the mirrors
won't work like they are supposed to (you have to hold the fold button in to
close the mirrors). Instructions on this procedure can be found on Mark Pacpaco's install page,
he uses a Radio Shack DPDT (double pole double throw) relay. Mark's page
is actually one of the best install pages out there (in fact there is only one
other page I have found), which is why I'm making one too. In case his
goes away for whatever reason.
Here's the tools I used for this:
20 AWG wire
Soldering iron
22-20 AWG butt connectors (small yellow ones from Radio Shack)
22-18 AWG tap-ins (Part#64-3053 from Radio Shack...I ended up not using these, but you might)
Wire cutters
Wire crimpers
Wire strippers
Electrical tape or heat shrink
Precision screwdriver or hex driver (small enough to fit in harness, above the pin, I used a 1/32" flat blade driver and a small hex. Both can be found in the 16 piece Radio Shack set, Part#64-3053. A good buy.)
Screwdriver (flat and philips)
8mm socket
As always unplug the battery before working with anything electrical.
**Disclaimer** I am not responsible for any damage done to the vehicle or person.
First let's remove the door panels and get the old mirrors off. I don't have any pictures because this is pretty straight forward.
Remove all the screws you can find. In 92-95 Civics there are three, one in the small "pocket," one behind the inside door handle, and one plastic screw in the panel close to the hinge. Remove the plastic bits like the "pocket" and the plastic molding around the handle.
Using a flat blade screw driver, slide it in between the bottom of the panel and the metal part of the door. Give it a quick jerk and the bottom of the panel should pop off.
Use the loosened bottom as a hand hold to start pulling the rest of the door off. Don't worry it's pretty tough, but make sure not to lose any of those gray "fasteners" (for lack of a better word). If you see any gray fasteners left in the frame of the door, pull them out.
Using the flat blade screwdriver lever the black back cover from behind the mirror, so you can get at the nuts.
I'm pretty sure the nuts holding the mirrors are 8mm, but it's been a couple days since I have done this. Remove these and pull the mirror off. Don't lose the rubber gasket, unless you got those with your mirrors.
Mount the JDM mirrors in the opposite fashion. Don't put those panels back on yet though! :o)
After that we can start swapping the necessary pins between the JDM and USDM harnesses going to the mirrors and the switch. This is assuming you got the JDM harnesses. If not you will have to rig something up. Ultimately the only thing we are doing here is adding missing pins to the existing USDM harnesses from the JDM.
Lets start with the mirror harnesses. First pop open
the tabs, on the JDM harness, holding onto the pins. Use a thin flat
blade for this.
You will be removing the two extra pins from the JDM
harness, that the USDM harness doesn't have.
Use your "pin removal tool," (aka small
screwdriver or hex driver) to gentle pull the pin out. Insert it in
the harness right above the wire, you MAY hear a little click. Then
pull back on the wire to pull the entire pin out. Don't worry if you
don't get it right away, you may have to wiggle it a bit, or you may need a
thicker precision tool.
After you have those two pins out of the JDM harness pop
the tabs of the USDM harness and put them in there. For the driver's
side put the Blu/Red wire in the top portion of the harness and the Grn/Yel
in the bottom portion of the harness. Do the opposite for the
passenger side, Grn/Yel on top Blu/Red on bottom (See pictures). It
seems the pins get reversed for either side. Why this is, I don't
know. All I know is once I had everything hooked up, one mirror closed
while the other opened.
Once the pins are in, close the tabs and plug 'em in.
Next we do the harness for the mirror switch. Open
the JDM harness tabs in the same fashion as the mirror, and remove the Blu/Yel
wire ONLY (or whatever color is in the appropriate pin). This is the
only pin that will be moved/swapped. Do not swap the Blue wire and the
Yel/Red wire in the USDM harness to make it match the JDM harness. The
pin-outs of the power mirror relay (not the relay responsible for folding
the mirrors) is different in the JDM and USDM, and if you swap these wires
it will affect the adjustment of the mirrors themselves. Trust me, I
know (the picture of me removing that wire is me swapping the pins
back)! :oP
Next we get to run wires, YAY! We'll start with the wires for the mirrors since they are the hardest. Like Mark (see beginning) said in his site, it can be done quickly but look poorly or it can take a while and look more professional. I'll let you know what I did to make it go by quickly and still look decent.
Open up your car door and look into the door jamb, see that
rubber seal on the passenger compartment side of the car? Stick your
fingers in the and pull/prod/push it off and out.
If you feel like it, stick you fingers in the hole to get a good feel for what is going on in there. You will feel what seems to be a couple layers of metal (you will know what I am talking about when you do it). We are going to need to get the wires past these. This will be a combination of trying to jam the wires in there and laying down trying to reach up under the dash to feel for the wires coming, which isn't the most comfortable thing in the world. I was able to get the wires in just a couple minutes though, even with my fat fingers.
First twist the ends of the wires and then cup the wire
combo in you hand holding it with your fingers (see the pic).
Run the wire by sliding you hand in the jamb like so.
You will be using you fingers to push the wire in the hole, and guide it past the layers. Trust me, once you get a feel for it, it's clear sailing. Or you could get a wire loom.
After you get that one end in, it time to run the rest. I started by running the other end of the wire through the rubber seal seen in picture one. You may need to cut the bottom of the seal to get the wire through there (again you will know what I am talking about if you try to do it).
Then I ran the wire through the seal going into the door
frame.
After that you just follow the path of the wires that are already there, assuming you have power mirrors already.
I was just using red and black on the passenger side, and
some green and green/black wiring on the driver's side (used too much wire),
so I chose a color specific code. The darker color (black or
green/black) would be the darker Blu/Red wire, and the lighter color (red or
green) would be the Grn/Yel. Then I just used my handy-dandy butt
connectors, wrapped with electrical tape, and I was done with that.
Before you wire the plug for the relay, I suggest you find a nice mounting place for your relay. This will help you figure out how much wire you need. I'll show you where I mounted mine, but you don't have to mount in the same place. Fortunately my relay came with the original mounting bracket, so I didn't have to "sticky tape" them anywhere. Here's where I mounted.
I used a bolt inside the metal guard right under the
dash. You will have to remove the plastic panel below the steering
column to access this. All I did was unscrew the bolt shown and bolt it
back up with the relay attached.
There was enough room behind this plate for the relay to
sit. Lucky for me!
Now that the relay is mounted we know how much wire length we will need, and we can start running wire for the mirror switch. You will be running three wires. One will be an extension of the Blu/Yel wire you added the USDM harness, and the other two will be tapped into the switched power and ground. I will be providing pictures, but Mark Pacpaco made a great diagram that can be found on his site. I will also be providing the pin out here. I do advise you to consult his pin-out often (I'm too lazy to do my own, Thanks Mark!)
I started by running a wire to the Blu/Yel wire in pin 1 of
the harness. This is the wire that controls the folding functions of
the mirrors (i.e. the wire that goes to that special button). Then I
use another one of my convenient butt connectors (sorry about the pic, damn
sun!)
Then I ran a red wire to the wire coming off pin 9. This is the switched power.
After that, a black wire to the wire coming off pin 10. This is the ground.
There are a couple ways to go about tapping into these
wires. I started off trying to use wire taps from Radio Shack.
But those are too bulky. So I ended up dusting off my soldering iron
and making a CLEAN splice into the necessary wires. Strip just a
little shielding off a portion of the wire that is easily accessible.
Then wrap your red wire and black wire to their respective
"tap-ins" and solder away. I used some nice shrink wrap for
this, but electrical tape will finish the job just as well. The first
pic shows the bulky tap-in I tried, and the next one shows my final job.
Now it's time to connect the final pieces together, the wires from the mirrors and the wire from the switch. All of these are ending up at the folding mirror relay. The way this works is two wires will be going to the respective wires from the JDM harness. Meaning that the wires representing the Grn/Yel from both mirrors will go to one wire (pin 5), and the wires representing the Blu/Red from both mirrors will go to one wire (pin 1). This is pretty straight forward if you follow Mark's pin-out diagram and my pictures.
Let's start with the wires coming from the switch.
One thing I want to stress is that the colors of the wires MAY not match
up. My wire color didn't match with some of the colors on Mark's
diagram. So, you my have to go by the pin number. The wire
coming from my splice into pin 10 of the switch (ground) went to the black
wire coming from pin 2 on the relay harness. The wire coming from pin
9 of the switch (switched power) went to pin 4 on the relay harness.
And the wire coming from pin 1 of the switch (aka Blu/Yel wire) went to pin
3 on the relay harness. Again, I used butt connector for these wires
and wrapped them with electrical tape when I was done.
After those wires are done it's time for the real
testing. If you were like me you already had your all your wires run
from both mirrors. So, take both wires representing the Grn/Yel from
both mirrors (for me it was red and green) and twist them together along
with the wire coming off pin 5 on the relay harness (mine was blue, but
should be Grn/Yel). Then take both wire representing the Blu/Red from
both mirrors (for me it was black and green/black) and twist them together
along with the wire coming off pin 1 on the relay harness (mine was Blu/Red,
which is what it should be). Keep these two connections from touching,
plug the harness into the relay, and hook the battery back up.
When you turn the car on and press the button (you may have to hit the
button twice) both mirrors should fold in together. If they don't fold
in at all check the mirror fuse. If one folds in and the other
doesn't, or one folds in while the other closes; you will have to switch the
Blu/Red and Grn/Yel pins on the bastard mirror. Do this either by
switching the pins in the mirror harness or switching the wires going to the
JDM relay. Ultimately mine looked like this.
You can find a clip of the final product here.
One thing I noticed is the bracket attached
to the door frame makes a great soldering iron holder! Just watch out for
that plastic. ;o)
That's pretty much it. I will be trying to figure out an easy way to wire it up so that the mirrors fold when I park or turn the car off. I'll add to this article when I actually try to work on it.
I really recommend getting the OEM folding mirror relay opposed to the home-made version. I tried the home-made version personally and it just doesn't work as well. If you look hard enough you can find these relays on eBay and maybe ThePartsTrader. I have gotten a couple that way.
That should be it. If you have any questions e-mail me.