Thursday, 13 May 2010

Had the engine start up for the first time in ten months tonight, good to know that it still works! There's a couple of electrical issues with the new gauges, and need to bleed the radiator. Still got the brackets to make up for the bumper, the wings will be properly fitted soon but will still need a shit load of tweaking after JTS to make them fit properly.

I've also got one of the wing mirror indicators working and it looks awesome, Here are some photos of how I achieved that

This only applies for RA models, but you can probably use some of the bits for the RB

First step is to remove the wing mirror from the door, this is done by removing the interior plastic panel, then the 3 screws on the inside. You'll need to take the door cards off to unplug the socket for the electric bits. Then the wing mirror should be free.

Remove, take into garage put onto bench, then gently prise the mirror itself off by using a flat bladed screw driver in the bottom of the mirror and pivoting against the plastic of the mirror cover. (Be gentle.. If the mirror isn't all the way up it'll click back into its top most position before the mirror finally pops off)

Next You'll need to use a philips head screwdriver to remove as many of the screws as you can see, There are 4 holding the tilt mechanism in place (one at least may be hidden by the cable). Then you'll need to undo the back piece that holds the folding motor in place. Here are some photos of me doing that:

Then you'll need to undo the 3 screws that hold the wing mirror onto the door panel.

Then you can remove the back piece completely, and take the top off the motor mechanism by undoing the 4 screws on that.

If you look into the top of the folding motor mechanism now you'll see the wires come up through that. So you'll need to pass a positive and negative wire through along the same path as the normal wires from the connector end through the bottom of the motor and up out of the top.

At this point as both cables are through you can put it all back together, here's a photo of what it should look like (with the 3x 5mm holes drilled out for the LED's)

Now you'll need to make up the rest of the wiring for the LED's, as you're passing 12v through then you'll need resistors in place for the LED's so they don't blow up. You need to work out what size resistors you need using a calculator that you can find on google quite easily. Mine turned out to be 330ohms at 1/2 watt, so I've created a piece of wiring up so that each LED gets power from the positive wire we've passed through the motor and out of the wing mirror, with a resistor before the LED. The positive leg on the LED's are the long ones, the short one is negative (or if they're both the same length the led should have a flat side on the base, and that shows the negative leg). Once they're all wired up:

Red Wire -> Resistor -> LED -> Black Wire

Then you'll need to put them in place, bit of glue will help here, this is what mine looks like:

Then you'll need to connect the other ends of the cable to the standard side repeater wires (the black/green thin one is positive, and the thicker black is negative) and put it all back in place.

This is the cables at the connector end

And this is what my LED's look like in place, they're clear but light up really bright orange.

Have tested them and they look awesome, so I'm well impressed. Just need to sort the drivers side one out now

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