The Ruckus

I read through threads looking for confirmation that the mirrors were, in fact, interchangeable throughout the 3rd gen series. I found a lot of "I think so, but I'm not sure" and "better stick to the year you have, better safe than sorry". I don't think I ever found anything that 100% confirmed it, but I also didn't exhaust the ends of the forums' searchable threads... at any rate, here's what I found.

background: I broke a mirror housing the other day on my 2000, found a replacement in a junk yard today that was the right paint color, but from a 97. At half the price of the "correct" used and non-paint matched model mirror, I figured it was worth a try.

First things first:

1997 mirror:




2000 mirror:





Yes, they are slightly different in shape of the glass, and the contours of the housing. You cannot use the glass from a 97 in the housing of a 99.

The mounting bases are identical. My original intent was to steal the housing off the 97, fill it with the 2000's guts, and use the 2000's mount to make it all work. Way way less work to just use the 97 as it was and get on with life.

New issue created by this redirection of plan? The wiring harness clips are totally different.

97:

2000:


My 2000 has heated/powered. The 97 was powered, but not heated.

Solution is to cut the 2k's male end clip with plenty of extra wire, solder the brown, black, and red wires to their mates (I confirmed for myself that the wiring colors stayed the same year to year in that particular time span), and capped the purple/wht and black/wht with heat shrink, tied them out of the way. That leaves the power function working, but negates the heating wires that the 97 (at least the one I picked up) doesn't have anyway.





Plug and play after that. So for the ease of those searching in the future.... yes! you can in fact use an early 3rd gen mirror on a late 3rd gen body with minimal effort.

Nuthuts96

iTrader: (1)

THIS has been on my list of things to-do, for about 2 years, and still haven't gotten around to it... maybe this summer?
anywho, you could probably just install one on the 'new' '97 mirror, and plug into the power supplied at the door and voila, heated mirror is back in action.

thanks for updating this subject about fitment, too. i never quite knew if they mounted interchangeably- knew they were different styles (housings/mirrors), but not mounting.

The Ruckus

Wow. That's a pretty intense thread that BensonX ended up creating at page 10 or 11. It's a pretty creative approach that I'd have never thought of. I may just do it... You're right on the money, It's just a matter of soldering the old connector back onto the mirror end of things and soldering the heat grid's power to the prpl/wht and blk/wht tails that I left. Outstanding! Thanks for the tip.