Electric mirrors

[Farmer Bob]

I would like to strip the electric mirrors on my elite so I can repair / paint. Does the mirror glass pull out so you can get to the internals? I am worried about pulling the glass off and breaking the internals as they are few and far between.

Also. they have a black and 4 coloured wires, presumably the black is earth and each of the colours is for a motor? to move the glass in one direction.

[Roger 912]

I know on my Excel that there is a small lever behind the glass that when moved disengages the mirror and plastic backing from the motor control.

The two motors on mine have only three wires, a common wire and a wire from each. The polarity is changed within the interior switch so the motor can go in both directions causing up/down and left/right.

 

Hope you come right.

[mikeeech]

I'm doing mine tonight and the glass is stuck to a backing plate which can peel away from the glass. heat it with a hot air gun first though.

the window motor is simple. a black earth and then the switch on the door sends 12v to either of the four other wires to power the mirror motor(s). Mine does not work So I will have to take this backing plate off which is not designed to be removed. 

[Farmer Bob]

Cheers Mike, I have the 5 wires and although some try do pull current it does not move. I will have a go at the weekend!

[mikeeech]

Mine had seized but i was able to free it off as i removed the backing from the motor by bending the tabs upright. I would guess mine won't work anymore just by looking at them.

40 years of weather. I guess a modern replace can be found with a few changes to the wiring.

[mikeeech]

What I have learnt today is that the mechanism still works... to a point. So the mechanism works by the mirror holder being able to be attracted to 1 of the four electromagnets that you can see on the four corners and when energised the electro magnets still work creating a noticeable field (does draw 1 amp and 12 volts though and got quite hot!). Simply oiling the pivot point might bring it back to life although the corrosion on the plates will obviously be reducing the field strength.

 

Edited April 21, 2017 by mikeeech

[oilmagnet477]

Mike - good detective work!

Is there any way that the mechanism from a new mirror could be retro fitted into the Elite framework to retain the original look?

I have no idea how modern mirrors work but the idea of 4 electromagnets is pretty funky - another example for me of how far ahead of it's time these cars were?

I wonder (simply out of interest) how many other cars had electrically adjustable mirrors in 1980? I imagine the most that a lot of cars achieved was a stalk on the inside of the door to avoid the need to open the window to adjust.

[mikeeech]

Funnily enough I have a bid on some vauxhall corsa mirrors for 99p at the moment so i will let you know if a retrofit is easy.

Electric mirrors would have been very high class, and electric windows for that matter. I remember as a kid in the early 80's when my dad brought a rover sd1 with electric windows thinking it was very posh. They are so ubiquitous now that you forget sometimes.

[Dan E]

Mike, funny you should say that when I first got my Elise my Niece sat in it and said, "what are they for?" I said they are to wind down the windows!! So she had never been in a car without electric windows!! 

 

[Farmer Bob]

On 4/20/2017 at 22:17, mikeeech said:

Mine had seized but i was able to free it off as i removed the backing from the motor by bending the tabs upright. I would guess mine won't work anymore just by looking at them.

40 years of weather. I guess a modern replace can be found with a few changes to the wiring.

Mine seemed in much better nick, the green wire is earth and the other 4 wires operate 1of the 4 solenoids. These seem to knock/click as you would expect, I can only think that the knocking motion of the solenoid moves the mirror a bit,. All a bit odd really, however I will try to clean everything up and put back together again.

[mikeeech]

I thought I would post this since i needed to figure this out... i thought it might be useful

[Gray14]

Just found out a bit of information that might help anyone tackling this job. (Found it on an Esprit video below, these share the same door mirrors)

The 2 holes in the backing plate shown in Mike's 1st post give access to 2 crosshead screws, (shown in Mike's 2nd post) which hold the motors and backing plate to the front cover.

Undo these, if they're not rusted in place, and the assembly should separate

 

[snowrx]

I made a plate to replicate the footprint of the solenoid frame, so I could mount the internals from an inexpensive pair of EBay mirrors in place of the solenoids. This required a different joystick switch, but the action is much better.

I don't have pics of the shell bracket or the mirror backing plate attachment, but here's what the motor unit looked like;