My All-Trac's rear-view mirror wouldn't flip with that tab on the bottom, which would irritate me at night (even though my windows are tinted pretty darkly). So rather than just replace the mirror with another Corolla mirror, I decided to go another route.
This project of mine goes back to 1 year from this month, when I pulled the rear-view mirror from a junkyard Chrysler LeBaron convertible. I used to own two of those convertibles... I loved using those maplights. Anyways my All-Trac wagon only has the dome light (some models have maplights), which I find frustrating to use when I want to see something in the glove box or anywhere in the front.
So after pulling the LeBaron's mirror with the wiring harness (pulled as much wiring as I could manage), and of course testing it at the 'yard to make sure it worked, I needed to make up a bracket to use it in my wagon. This is what I came up with... fast forward from February 2010 to June 2010...
I measured what I needed and had some guys from my workplace cut & weld this. I drilled out the holes with a friend's drill press, countersunk for the heads of the screws. The LeBaron bracket uses this triangle shape to keep the mirror locked in place at the base, so...
...done by hand with my Dremel. Tedious, but I got it! We do powdercoating at my job as well...
I've since removed the acorn nut you see here. It was only there to finish off the look, and protect the end of the bolt sticking through the bracket (I use sunshades a lot in my wagon). I had a black screw protector (those rubbery caps) that fit perfectly, so that's what is on there now.
Fast forward to a week ago, when I finally decided to set aside the time to wire this into my dome light. The wagon's
headliner is one piece from front to rear... not an easy task to remove by yourself, haha.
I hate cutting into my wagon, because it's not like I can just pop down to a junkyard and find parts for it. Too much stuff is unique to the All-Trac / 4WD body, and they are few & far between here in Florida. But I had to cut out a small |_| shape in the headliner to run the wiring. I made the cut big enough for the wiring harness connector to slip through...
Getting there...
^ These are the extended ends of the colored wires coming out of the LeBarons r-v mirror harness. All are black wires with a different colored stripe coming out of the harness. Anyways I drilled out one of the "blank" holes so I could feed the three wires through the dome light fixture. I had to ream out the inside of the ring connector in order to fit the dome fixture screw through it.
The "red" and "white" wires are soldered to those respective parts of the fixture. They didn't take easily, but they're on pretty good. I just have to be careful with removing the LED dome light, since the positive contact now has a wire soldered to it.
It was some trial & error to get that wiring set up properly, but there it is! The LeBaron map lights are now tied in with my dome light. So if my dome switch is set to DOOR, the map lights & dome light come on. Same for when I'm in the wagon and switch it to ON, all three lights come on. Best thing is, when I'm out & about, and my passenger needs to see something when it's dark, they can switch on their own map light and not both me too much (LEDs are still brighter than the incandescent bulbs, haha). These map lights work regardless of where that dome light switch is!
ONLY downside to this setup, is that if someone in the back seat wants to flip that dome light on while I'm driving... the dome & map lights all turn on. So then I'm bathed in cool white LED light while driving
I'm sure if I fudged around with the wiring enough, I could find a workaround. Honestly though, I rarely have passengers, so I'm not too arsed about it. Another downside, the LeBaron mirror is slightly narrower at the middle (and slightly wider) than the Corolla r-v mirror. Not a big deal, though.
This is taken from outside my wagon, standing at the front-right corner and looking in. I'll try to take some better pics in the daylight. I still need to buy a new dome light cover since my original one deteriorated...
Installed a rear-view mirror with map lights (pic heavy)
Linear Mode
