Auto dimming retrofit
 

How complicated is wiring for auto dimming rear view mirror? My 'manual' fell apart, thinking of fitting auto dimming if it's not overly complicated? :Confused:

To do it properly needs a donor car from which to extract the wiring harness, and requires the headlining out. It has 6 connections to other circuits, comprising side lights, reverse lights, switched and permanent ignition, output to the side mirrors and ground.

However, people have managed to wire it in to just the stuff thats already up there for the interior lights and sunroof and gone without the side mirrors (megabucks anyway) and the disable-in-reverse feature. I think Andrew has done that, maybe someone else too? There was some discussion about it in AdrianE's sale thread for his spare platinum mirror.

There is a thread relating to retrofitting one of these, which is useful:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1100

The only issue I ran into when doing mine was the colour of the wires being different to mine. In the end I just used the pin assignments to get the power, and as MJ mentioned, just wired it up to get the mirror working.

This one post from my own thread may be useful in regard to sourcing power for it:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showpost....0&postcount=10

Only on my PF and as described I didn't bother with the external mirrors. Pretty simple to do.

Funnily enough my FL one had it factory-fitted and the internal mirror is still fine after 18 years, but the external mirrors failed long ago. I managed to procure them individually though it took some time, so it does now work correctly even though I personally don't feel the need for the external ones, other than OCD of course…... The drivers side is actually as US passenger one with the silly wording on; doesn't bother me. :o

Objects in the mirror are losing :ROFL:

Great, thanks guys. Seems simple enough, even with reverse feed. +++

It was so long ago I forget the details, but I also did a similar install on the Ford Focus I had at the same time, both mirrors had effectively the same connections.
IIRC I tested the mirrors off the car by hooking up a 12V power supply, this also verified the actual connections.

The reverse signal I personally found pointless, but if you want to use it there's a long circuit that runs right through the car (via the F125 switch!) to the reversing lights.
One convenient access point is the back of the RNS where I think it's labelled something like RFSL and is red/blue possibly brown?
I think I recorded what I did in the thread linked to above by Sean (Steamship).