How To: Change Mirror Housings

[KfabR8]

Here's a little write up that I've done for changing out the mirror housings on our cars.

Tools needed:

• T10 Torx bit
• T20 Torx Bit
• 3mm Allen wrench
• Small pry bar (I recommend MaCarbon's set)
• Protective towels

Start out by using a small pry bar (as mentioned, I like MaCarbon's set) and insert it between the outer edge of the mirror and the housing's lip.



Pry carefully and the outer edge of the mirror will pop loose.

Next, remove the wires from the mirror. Two of them are for the heating element - these are the two single wires. There is no + or - connection, although I went ahead and marked each one accordingly (red +). These wires are a beastie to remove.



The other wire is for the dimming aspect. It's a single body, two wire plug. It's held in place with some small clips. You can either remove the plug assembly and then disconnect the two pieces or you can just pull the two pieces apart. You're call. The plug that comes out is the white one with the blk/gr & blk/wh wires.



Next you need to pull out the T20 Torx and remove the four screws holding the mirror adjusting assembly in place. You can see the three inner screws in the picture below


The fourth screw needed to be removed is in the bottom of the housing. (bad pic)



Next you need to remove the allen head socket cap screw that holds the mirror assembly onto it's stalk. The screw is in tightly.



Once the last screw is removed, you need to turn the mirror housing out away from the car - far away. Don't worry, it's not going to break, but it's not something that you want to do often. It will suddenly go from having resistance to loose. The mirror fits down over a stalk with a pair of locating ears/tabs.



Once you do this, the whole shebang comes off. (once again, sorry for the lovely in focus picture)



Now you can get to the wires that are really fun to unplug.

There are three sets of them. One (three wire plug) goes to the motor that controls mirror movement. This one's found on the mirror side of the assembly. It's held in with a pair of little ears. I found that a small screw driver was able to be worked in between the ear and the side of the plug. Do one side at a time and then once you get the plug past the grasp of the ears, the plug will come out fairly easily.

You can see the three lead plug and how it goes from the back side to the front. It's tight and there's not a lot of room to play with.

The second plug's easy. Pull it out of it's little home spot and pull the two pieces apart.

Third plug (blue and yellow wires) is fairly tricky - you have to push the tab (on the end) inwards as you pull the plug out of the turn signal. I used a small flat blade to push the tab and then wiggled the plug free with two fingers..



Once you get the plugs undone, the motor assembly comes right out. All the wires go through the main body of the assembly. Push the black (signal) plug out first and then just work the rest out. It takes a bit of patience and you'll discover that you fight the pod a bit doing this.



Here you can see the motor assembly and the housing.



Next, pull out the T10 Torx and remove the six little screws holding the turn signal in place. When you pull this out, there's a small plastic piece that stays in the housing's body. I thought that I'd broken a tab, but it turns out it's an optical notice for the driver. The carbon housings don't have this little clear plastic piece. You can see the little window on the far left, just inside the housing body.



Flip the pod over and remove the little black plastic cover. There are two ears that clip into the housing. I pushed them (carefully) from the inside and the cover pops right out.



Here you have it - the mirror and all it's parts:



Insert the little plastic pad that you removed from the outside of the other housing. It snaps in place nicely.

Insert the blinker strip. Stick the free end through the pod and then rotate the strip into place. It doesn't quite snap into place, but you can tell when it's seated.





When you put the 6 T10 screws back into the housing, be careful not to over tighten them. The carbon WILL STRIP if you decide to ham-fist it. Snug is good, tight is not.

Next, run all the wires back through the housing and then run them though the motor assembly's tube. Once again, run the black signal plug last otherwise you'll be fighting a handful of wires.

I connected the three wire plug first, as it has the least wiggle room to work with. One of them snapped right in for me, the other was a fight.



Next was the two wire plug that as a home in the end of the motor assembly.



Last, but definitely not least was plugging the blinker strip back in. It's not the easiest thing to get to either. Fortunately for me I don't have large hands, otherwise I'd been screwed.



Slide the motor assembly back into the housing - it will fight for a minute until you get everything aligned and then it will just sort of locate itself. Screw the three T20 button head screws that hold the motor assembly back in. Once again, snug is good, tight is bad. You can screw the bottom counter sunk screw in at this time too.

This seems to be about the right orientation for getting things lined up:



After you get the motor assembly in place, slip the pod over the stalk. If you look in the picture, you can see the tab and the slot in the pod ass'y.



Now twist the whole assembly in.



As you do this, watch for the hole that the counter sunk cap screw goes into. Look at the pic above and below and you'll see how the hole for the screw comes into view as you rotate the mirror ass'y.



Screw the counter sunk cap screw in place (tighten fully - tight is good here).

Now take the mirror and reinstall the three loose plugs back onto it. - make sure that you've kept these leads towards the mirror side of the motor assembly, otherwise you'll be unscrewing it and fishing out the pig tails.

Once you've plugged the mirror back in, take notice of the curved blade that sticks out of the back of it. That blade goes into the little metal clip looking device on the end of the motor assembly. It's an alignment blade. Slide the blade into the clip and then gently push on the middle of the mirror. It will snap right back in place.



Clean your pod, clean your mirror and tada, you've just changed out a mirror housing.

This is the second set that I've done. I don't recall what the time required was for the first set. During the change out of this set, the first mirror took me about 30 - 35 minutes. I was trying to take my time and get pictures. The second mirror took me right at 20 minutes to change out. It's a pretty simple procedure.

No carbon mirror



Much better!



Coming soon: How to remove the front and rear bumper facia, replace the front grill, replace the tail pipes and replace the tail lights with European spec units.

[FiftyPence]

Superb, thanks for taking the time to do this. I look forward to your future How To's aswell.

[DrDavid121]

great job, any group buys for cf mirrors? David, R8 V10, 6 speed, daytona with carb sideblades.

[harrison]

Thanks Boss. The only way to do a proper wrap

[harald]

fantastic jobs. Thx a lot for the detailed how to do

Harald

[sundowner]

Thanks for the helpful DIY. I'm still waiting to see what you are going to do with those door sills.

[KfabR8]

Thanks for the helpful DIY. I'm still waiting to see what you are going to do with those door sills.

Unfortunately, I'll not be doing as planned with the sills.

My original thought was to hybrid the lighted sills and the carbon sills that I have. Getting the aluminum off the carbon sill was easy - a bit of adhesive remover and a little patience and I now have one sill w/o anything on it.

The lighted sills, on the other hand, are a bit more involved than I was hoping. The lighted section goes on from the underside and the top side cover with the logo sandwiches the plastic sill body. Removing the top strip off the plastic sill is not a big deal, but the lighted assembly that goes in on the bottom is very well adhered and it doesn't look like I'll be able to remove it w/o damage. I'm still not sure what the hole through the sill looks like either, but I know I'll have to cut up the carbon sill a tad to make it all work.

I'm still not giving up on the idea of lighted carbon sills, but this is a project that's going to take a bit. If I go ahead and give it a shot, I'll make sure I take pix of what's going on.

Must admit, this one's something I'd like to do, but I'm not sure that I want to chance destroying the lighted section.

Of course, right after I start thinking about this project, I find out that lighted carbon sills are available in Europe, so maybe I'll end up ordering a set instead of jacking up a set of carbon and a set of regular lighted sills.

[sundowner]

Unfortunately, I'll not be doing as planned with the sills.

Of course, right after I start thinking about this project, I find out that lighted carbon sills are available in Europe, so maybe I'll end up ordering a set instead of jacking up a set of carbon and a set of regular lighted sills.

I recently received a quote for the lighted carbon sills - $2,870.30 delivered. I'm tempted, but, not sure I want them that badly.

[mark25]

Great writeup mate wish this had existed before I paid Audi to change mine biggest ripoff ever :P When you said mirror pods I thought you meant the bit below the wing mirror housing?

[KfabR8]

Ah, noted. Now that you say that, I realize the pods are the stalk between the door and the housing. I'll go edit appropriately. Thanks for the heads up on that.

fwiw, the pods looked to be screwed on with three (I think I saw three - may just be two, really wasn't paying attention) socket head cap screws. Follow the removal procedure for the housing and once you get to the point of having the housing removed, changing the pod should be nothing more than unscrewing a few fasteners, pulling the pod, replacing it with the desired (guessing carbon covered) unit and then proceed with housing re-installment.

Working on the R8 really is a joy and in general, quite easy. It's a beautifully designed assembly and if you understand what the engineers were doing, the order in which things are removed/replace and how specific fasteners fit, lend to being able to take it apart and put it back together with ease and the satisfaction of knowing it's not going cause any issues.