5th Gen Power Folding Mirrors- How To!

[Antman]

Welcome to Project Mirror Mayhem.

In all likelihood I have the only 5th gen 4Runner with power folding mirrors in the U.S. !

Before I get into the writeup- (I have a TON of pictures)- there is a pretty cool story behind this.

Member [MENTION=151841]Kenstyle[/MENTION] wanted power folding mirrors on his 4Runner. He purchased Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) power mirrors from a Toyota Hilux off Ebay, and a Toyota power mirror switch for the dash. Ken’s thinking was that it would all be plug and play and took it to a local shop. The shop quickly discovered that it was anything but that! Somehow, Ken decided to get me involved and sent me a PM. Here’s the crazy part- This guy wanted to send me a set of JDM mirrors (completely taken apart no less) a brand new set of American Domestic Market (ADM) mirrors and the switch to try to make this project happen. The hinges on the mirror must be swapped, he knew, but everything else was completely unknown(details to follow).

Obviously I had some trepidation here- these parts are expensive! Ken told me don’t worry about it- try to get it to work, KEEP ALL THE PARTS (!) and if you get it make a writeup so I can do it. This guy is nutso, lol (Great guy, he’s not nutso but you get the drift). Yes, it works! I finally talked Ken into shipping me all his parts so I could do the swap for him (I sent him my OEM mirrors to use in the meantime).

Follow along- This is definitely NOT a job for first timers! I had to design a “tool” to get the ADM mirrors apart and it required a lot of R&D. That was the hard part. The first mirror took me 4 hrs to complete, the second…30 minutes, lol.

Enjoy the writeup!

What you need…

*This switch :
part number 84870-28040
MIT TOYOTA LEXUS SCION OEM outside door power folding mirror switch ILLUMINATE | eBay

*From Ebay:
Mirrors from a JDM Hilux (no puddle lights)
or
Mirrors from a JDM Fortuner (puddle lights)

*Your OEM mirrors (5.5 Gen in this case)




PART 1: Let’s start with your OEM mirrors.

You need to take them apart- so take off the door panel and remove the 3 10mm bolts that hold the mirror on, unplug it and take it to the bench. (If you can’t figure out this part without a writeup you should not be doing this MOD- fair warning!)

Start taking the mirror apart. The glass pulls off, the back cover has some clips you can see behind the mirror. Get to this stage:



Time to cut some wires. You will need parts of BOTH harnesses to make this as professional as possible.
Cut the mirror adjust wires (yes all!), the puddle light and the turn signal lights(if you have them) DO NOT cut the black mirror heater plug. You need to take the terminals out of the plug like this:






Pull the harness out and you have this:














Now the hard part. The ADM mirror is held together with a cam-lock over a strong spring. It can’t be turned without relieving some spring pressure. I modified a socket to fit the tabs on the washer, used a clamp to compress the spring (just a little) and turned the washer until it lined up with the tabs. Easy!















So now the hinge is apart. You need to keep the part of the hinge that bolts to the door, the wiring harness / rubber grommet, and the plastic cover under the hinge from the OEM mirror:





continued

 

[Antman]

Part 2: Let’s take apart the JDM mirrors




Ok- cut the plug off the JDM mirror- no need for that. Pull the harness out through the motor.





You can unwrap it and toss the heated mirror wires (the 2 black ones in my hand)




This hinge comes apart easily with the 3 torx screws!






This is where you are at now...
Still with me?

 

[Antman]

Part 3 : Combining JDM + ADM-= JADM?

These are all the parts (taken apart more than YOU need to).





Take your ADM harness and door-side hinge and screw it tho the JDM hinge with the 3 allen bolts. It only fits one way so don’t worry…



Start feeding the ADM harness into the JDM mirror. Tape the loose wires to make it easy.










Take the red tape off the harness by the door grommet- you will need a little more wiggle room inside the mirror housing for the heated mirror wires.


First, take off the electrical tape so your heated mirror wires will have enough slack to fully adjust the mirror. Plug the heated mirror leads back into the black plastic plug and test for slack by pushing the mirror all the way over (the clicking noise is OK)








Lookee here! Let’s unite the two countries.




Only take as much of the ADM harness into the mirror housing as necessary. You want to still be able to reach the factory harness in the door!

**Time for an important note. If you have puddle lights (Fortuner mirrors) you will connect them together just like the rest of the wiring- and you will need to run separate wires from the motor (blue and green) out next to the white plug in the door.
The Hilux mirrors do not have puddle lights- my ADM mirrors did, so I have 2 extra yellow wires in the harness. I connected these to the blue/green motor wires so I didn’t need to run any extra. Plug and play at the door! I marked the plug so I know which yellow wire is blue at the motor- they MUST be the same on each mirror- blue/blue, green/green.



Now, solder and heatshrink (use marine grade). The colors all match up. The red wires are all common so solder all 4 together.




Make it pretty!




I painted the cover with bedliner (it was white) and Tada! JADM mirror ready to go.

 

[Antman]

Part 4: The switch and wiring!

Ok- almost home free here.

Install the mirrors on the truck. If you ran new wires for the folding motors you will need to fab up a plug at the door in case you ever want to take the mirror back off. If you used the factory plug like me, you need to cut the corresponding wires (the ones originally for puddle lights - another project hehe) from the door plug- vehicle harness side- to run wires into the kickpanel.











You can pull the weatherstrip loose like this.







Take these bolts out on the door, pull the rubber grommet loose from the body side and it'll be easy to fish the wires into the kick panel.




Run extension wires from the motor (blue/green keep track of which is which!) along the door wiring channel, through the rubber grommet into the kickpanels. I split-loomed these later. Connect the blue/blue and green/green motor wires in the drivers kickpanel and run extension wires up through the mirror switch hole in the dash (I know, I know- the wires I ran are red and black. FWIW, Black=blue, red = green, Don't get confused, think Xmas bruise, lol). If you mix them up you will blow a 7.5A fuse in the driver’s fusebox, AHEM.








Here’s the OEM mirror switch and harness- 7 wires. We need 9 now.







The NEW switch and it’s harness. Pay attention to the plug where I removed the 2 wires. These 2 will go to the mirror folding motor wires. You can hook them up to either motor wire- I wired mine so button in = folded, button out = open.











Connect the folding power leads to the wires you ran into the switch opening and plug the switch into the factory harness.




DONE!!!!!! Now I get to do it all over for Ken's truck!

PS- Yess [MENTION=6163]phillyd2[/MENTION] if you send me the parts I will convert them plug and play (mostly) for you. I owe you my friend! HAHA!

 

[Kashoggio]

Very impressive sir

 

[Titanpat57]

Reserved....lol

 

[Kenstyle]

Lol, this is the "nutso" that Jeff mentioned, reporting. And Jeff, you do have the only 5th gen 4R with automatic folding mirrors in the whole country from research. I believe there has been one 4th gen owner who successfully made this conversion, though he didn't do any kind of an extenuating writeup to share his knowledge with the community, so I would say you are truly the first 4R owner with power folding mirrors. Kudos to you!!

I put this wizard of a man (and his family), and his sweet and infamous 4Runner through a WHOLE LOT in the last 2 weeks, but [MENTION=65614]Antman[/MENTION] had the cajones to take on this project that I had envisioned. My own local auto/electronic technician at a fancy electronics shop didn't have anywhere near the experience (nor the family jewels) to attempt to take on this mountain of a task (Project Mayhem, as Dr. Antman had coined) as Jeff did, but oh no, not Jeff. He's the type who will poke a sleeping bear. Because he, like many of us 4R owners, likes to tinker. And tinker he sure did with flying colors with Project Mirror Mayhem...

I don't know how the majority of the 4R community feels about this project, but I for one felt that our $40k+ trucks should have come with auto-folding mirrors straight from the factory as the JDM equivalent of our trucks, the Hilux/Fortuner would all come standard on the other side of the planet. This mod would help with the apartment dwellers (such as myself), the ones who live in the city, the ones who have to park in narrow spaces in garages at home or at the office on a daily basis, the ones who like to go off roading on narrow trails with tree branches/etc that could get in the way, etc.

And well, adding a bit of luxury to our 4Rs would be the icing on the cake right? Never made sense that our distant cousin, the Lexus RX (I park next to one inside a super tight underground garage with narrow parking spaces and mine also happens to be adjacent to a giant support concrete pillar) would have folding mirrors as well as many domestic trucks/SUVs, but our 4Rs would not have this feature.

Well now, Dr. [MENTION=65614]Antman[/MENTION] (as I will now refer to him) has now made this mod possible for our 5th gens!! Jeff, you are the truly a gentleman and a scholar, and a wizard with magical powers of some sort. Can't thank you enough, and I will have to take you out for a ribeye and a beer the next time I visit the east coast! I really appreciate you for giving me a shoutout Jeff, but man I'm just a simple guy with a vision. You were the mastermind and the brains. Guess that's usually how good teams work out in life. Can't wait to read the rest of this thread...

 

[LawnDart]

Space reserved for me popping a boner when you post a video.

 

[Antman]

Space reserved for me popping a boner when you post a video.

Pop it. It won't work for me, but I can see it on my phone...

The writeup is mostly done- more pics to add later.

 

[LawnDart]

Pop it. It won't work for me, but I can see it on my phone...

The writeup is mostly done- more pics to add later.

Good christ, start making these as kits!

 

[phillyd2]

Pure gold. I'd consider marrying you if you could cook and had better hair :usa2:

 

[Jhalko]

Once again Gracie earns a juice box...



Astounding work my friend. :usa2:

 

[LawnDart]

Pfft....40" tires and SAS...whatever.

Power folding mirrors? Pffft. Mod of the year.

 

[Thirty4]

Un-freakin-believable!!! I cannot believe you pulled that off. It's not that I would doubt you or you skills, I just never saw it coming.....truly....mod of the year for sure!!

 

[1engineer]

It's a mod worthy of the word "mod." I don't need nor want it (my mirrors could be sticking out 3 ft and I still wouldn't hit anything where I live) but I could see where it could be important to the city folks.

 

[LawnDart]

It's a mod worthy of the word "mod." I don't need nor want it (my mirrors could be sticking out 3 ft and I still wouldn't hit anything where I live) but I could see where it could be important to the city folks.

I live in a city with the worst traffic in the country, and I don't NEED it, and it's just one more thing to break, but my god...the effort and ingenuity that went into this...it's fantastic.

 

[Antman]

I live in a city with the worst traffic in the country, and I don't NEED it, and it's just one more thing to break, but my god...the effort and ingenuity that went into this...it's fantastic.

Thanks guys! The writeup was more aggravating than anything- EXCEPT for when I tested it and it all worked perfectly unyil I blew the 7.5a fuse. I was a crazed lunatic for 15 minutes, lol.

I can do this for anyone that sends me the parts at this point too...

 

[Kenstyle]

It's a mod worthy of the word "mod." I don't need nor want it (my mirrors could be sticking out 3 ft and I still wouldn't hit anything where I live) but I could see where it could be important to the city folks.

Here's a pic of my 4R in the garage

Got a F150 to my right, and an RX350 to my left in a narrow space. Not to mention that lovely concrete pillar.

Doesn't look like much, but hey...when you've got a bunch of grocery bags to carry from to your apartment, with a work bag slinged on your shoulder, it really helps when your truck's mirrors are folded in to give you some extra space to squeeze by on a daily basis.

 

[Kenstyle]

apologies for the enormous pic lol

 

[Antman]

Here's a pic of my 4R in my garage

You gotta resize that or it messes up the text for the entire page lol. See?