Haulin_in_Dixie

I think I am going to go for a set of these, they are supposed to be bigger and in my case the bigger the better.

Mechanos

3rd gen. on the left.... 2nd gen. on the right.



My truck was already wired for power/heated mirrors (the puny little stock ones I took off). The connectors are different between the 2nd gen. and 3rd gen., so I ended up cutting the connector plug off of the stockers and using it. The harness on the 3rd gen. mirrors is too short, so I spliced on some more wire to extend the harness and then spiced the stock connector onto the end of the extended harness. All my connections were soldered and covered with heat shrink tubing.

Like has been said several times.... the 3rd gen. body style was introduced in 2002 for the 1500 only. The 2002 2500 & 3500 were still 2 gen. body style. In 2003+ all models (1500, 2500 & 3500) were 3rd gen body style.

Mechanos

HID.... I don't have any personal experience with those, but I have heard that there is (or was) a known problem with excessive vibration in those mirrors. Don't know if it's been corrected to not.... don't know if that true or not.... just thought I'd mention it.

gandrews

I originally had the manual tow mirrors and completed the swap to power mirrors a few months back.

One interesting discovery is that the wires for the power and heated mirrors were already in place. Note the plugs for gen 2 and gen 3 are different - I purchased plugs at Radio Shack and made them so I could plug and unplug them.

Purchases - to complete the swap (from manual tow to power tow) not only do you need to buy 3rd gen power tow mirrors, but you need to buy the switch and **** that controls the mirror position and a new heater / air control to get the switch to power the heat for the mirrors.

It is not a cheap project, but I love it!!

As Mechanos has said, be careful when the springs let go and the second mirror is much easier than the first one.

Also before taking off my Manual mirrors the glass on the passenger side got loose. The smaller of the two fell off and the only replacements I found were way to expensive. Moral - check out the glass and reset it if found to be loose.

Good luck

George

Patrick Campbell

I'm hearing bad news about the manual 2nd gen tow mirrors... For another $50 it seems worth it to try out the ****'s.... might as well get the power/heated option too right?!

d0dg301

Mechanos, What did you come up with for the wire scematic for the 3rd gen power heads?

Mechanos

Ok... here's where I blew it. I used the connector plugs I cut off the stock power/heated mirrors and I jotted down the color codes once I got them figured out. The 3rd gen mirrors have 5 wires - dark green, grey, dark blue, black and black. The two black wires are for the heat. The dark green wire goes to the light blue wire on the 2nd gen. connector. Grey to yellow on the connector and dark blue to white on the connector. I thought this would be all I needed to write down, however, when I look at the pinouts in my FMS, the wires are listed as being different colors. I didn't bother to look to see if the wires on the other side of the connector were the same, but it appears that they are not. So, that's the best info I've got without opening one of the door panels back up to look.

It wasn't hard to figure out though.... there are only three wires that control the mirror movement so it's just a matter of trying different combinations until the mirror moves as it should. Of course all of this info is based on my circumstances in which my truck was already wired for power mirrors, and defrost switch and joystick, etc. You're on your own if for that stuff if you have to install all that as well.

m batterson

my 97 didn't come with the heat option.if someone could tell me how to wire for the heat i would appreciate it.i read where the 2 black wires get tied together.is that al i do is run 1 wire from a switch to both the black wires thru a relay?or am i bringing over 2 wires,one being a ground?

thanks,

mike

Mechanos

Hmmm..... all I know is the heated mirrors have two black wires. One is power and the other is ground. It doesn't matter which is which since the heater is just a resistive load. My truck was already wired for it and had the factory heat button on the heater/AC control panel. I believe the factory system uses a relay to power the mirror heat and the factory button is also on a timer so the defroster element will turn off after a certain amount of time.

m batterson

mechanos,
what did you use for the threaded rod to compress the spring?how well did it work?looks like a pretty good idea.

mike

gandrews

M Batterson

The following link has good pictures of the whole process. It also talks about and has a good picture of the tool to compress the spring is really battery hold downs (modified) + a piece of steel with holes drilled in it + a socket.

http://www.turbodieselregister.com/u...&albumid=16271

Good luck

George

m batterson

George,

thank-you


mike

Mechanos

Yes, that is exactly the source I referenced to make the tool... only instead of a socket, I used a piece of DOM tubing I had in the shop. Worked perfectly both times I used it.... so it's 2 for 2. It compresses the spring and seats the retainer at the same time.

The main thing to note about the pics in the album on TDR is that his 2nd gen bases were made back in '01. There are differences in the bases and heads that required him to do some modifications to the 3rd gen heads to put them on his '01 bases. My 2nd gen heads, on the other hand, were manufactured in '04 and as can be seen in my pics, the heads are exactly the same (except for the power/heat issue) and required absolutely no modifications whatsoever. It was simply a matter of disassembly, swap, reassembly. I guess somewhere along the line Dodge switched the internal design of the 2nd gen heads to that of the 3rd gen. Bottom line is, the amount of work you have to do and the mods you will have to do will depend on the vintage of your 2nd gen. tow mirrors you start with.

Haulin_in_Dixie

Was looking at a GMC 6500 today, looks like the full size west coast mirrors from that would set up on the Dodge. Might go that route for my commercial work.

gandrews

"his 2nd gen bases were made back in '01."

"My 2nd gen heads, on the other hand, were manufactured in '04 and as can be seen in my pics, the heads are exactly the same"

Thanks for the clarification. Some of the instructions I had read told about modifying the heads / bases and some did not. Since my truck came with the tow mirrors I had to modify the new heads. Which was an interesting process. The second one was a whole lot easier.


George