The HACK
05-19-2002, 06:00 PM
Picture to come later...I didn't actually take any but I can snap a few picture of the interior to give y'all some idea how the entire process goes.
First off, I started the project yesterday with the intention of finishing it up by the time Kaz stopped by to look at his sway/suspension problems. The Mirror and the wiring harness is fairly straight forward, the mirror snaps right off and the harness is a simple plug and play...The instructions tells you exactly where to plug in the little wires into the harness. Removing the headliner is also a piece of cake, remove the long strip on the A pillar, remove the 3 #20 Torx screw, and just yank the cover off. The driver's side Oh Sh*t handle cover hides 2 screws, the vanity mirror has 2 screws, and the vanity mirror holder has 2 screws AND an expanding rivet. Of course, in removing the headliner I accidentally torn my weather stripping, now it's being held in by some epoxy glue. :(
Anyway, hooked up the wiring harness, snaked it along the headliner and clipped them into the existing wiring clip along with some plastic ties, and removed the driver's side vent by removing the trim panel and exposing the 2 screws holding the vent in. Funny side note, you'd be surprised how crappy the worksmanship is in your car. I noticed 1 missing rivet in the passenger side vanity mirror holder and 1 missing screw in the driver's side vent. But I digress. Anyway, I snake the wiring harness around the HPS airbag, through the driver's side vent carefully avoiding the pipes feeding into the vent, and down underneath the driver's side underpanel. All this took about 15-20 minutes, and I was just thinking, god, this is pretty easy! Took off the panel underneath and started looking for ground X217. Checked the diagram, checked underneath the steering column...Nothing. Nothing looks even remotely like ground X217 on the diagram. I even have Kaz look for me and I was baffled as to what to do next...If I can't ground the wires then it might set off some fault code or have some problems. So I just bundled everything back up and drove off since I had to catch Star Wars Episode II in a couple of hours.
Anyway, after playing hockey this morning and a quick shower, my hack instinct tells me it's got to be a lot easier than this. The ground was pretty much the only thing holding up the installation (so I thought). Screw this, I'm just going to find another ground wire and splice in. 20 minutes later I have a make shift splice with one of the provided splitters and found a suitable brown/black wire. Cross my fingers and hooked that up. Snaked the wires around the steering column and up a small, 1" diameter tunnel up to the back of the fuse box. Dismantled the glove compartment by unhooking the hinges, unscrewed the hinge cover, and removed the 5 screws holding the glove compartment in. Voila, dropped the fuse box and found the two remaining wires hanging down from the top of the tunnel. Inserted the blue/yellow wire into the top part of the fuse box (I think this is what provides power when you turn key to access II/Power on mode), inserted the green/yellow wire into fuse position 24 and...Realized I had inserted the wire into the wrong slot. There are 3 slots on a fuse panel, the top one I have no idea what it's for, the bottom one goes to the Central Control Unit and the middle one is where I'm suppose to insert the wire. Great I though, just pull the wire out, right? WRONG. I had to insert a tiny screw driver and pound the wire back out with a hammer because it's got this small tab that holds the wire into the harness/fuse panel. It took me about an hour's worth of struggling to get it out in decent shape.
Now that I got the wire into the right fuse panel, turn on the keys, put my finger over the front censor...VOILA! The mirror slowly dims. Another "successful" hack project completed. I just got to put the glove box back together. :)
First off, I started the project yesterday with the intention of finishing it up by the time Kaz stopped by to look at his sway/suspension problems. The Mirror and the wiring harness is fairly straight forward, the mirror snaps right off and the harness is a simple plug and play...The instructions tells you exactly where to plug in the little wires into the harness. Removing the headliner is also a piece of cake, remove the long strip on the A pillar, remove the 3 #20 Torx screw, and just yank the cover off. The driver's side Oh Sh*t handle cover hides 2 screws, the vanity mirror has 2 screws, and the vanity mirror holder has 2 screws AND an expanding rivet. Of course, in removing the headliner I accidentally torn my weather stripping, now it's being held in by some epoxy glue. :(
Anyway, hooked up the wiring harness, snaked it along the headliner and clipped them into the existing wiring clip along with some plastic ties, and removed the driver's side vent by removing the trim panel and exposing the 2 screws holding the vent in. Funny side note, you'd be surprised how crappy the worksmanship is in your car. I noticed 1 missing rivet in the passenger side vanity mirror holder and 1 missing screw in the driver's side vent. But I digress. Anyway, I snake the wiring harness around the HPS airbag, through the driver's side vent carefully avoiding the pipes feeding into the vent, and down underneath the driver's side underpanel. All this took about 15-20 minutes, and I was just thinking, god, this is pretty easy! Took off the panel underneath and started looking for ground X217. Checked the diagram, checked underneath the steering column...Nothing. Nothing looks even remotely like ground X217 on the diagram. I even have Kaz look for me and I was baffled as to what to do next...If I can't ground the wires then it might set off some fault code or have some problems. So I just bundled everything back up and drove off since I had to catch Star Wars Episode II in a couple of hours.
Anyway, after playing hockey this morning and a quick shower, my hack instinct tells me it's got to be a lot easier than this. The ground was pretty much the only thing holding up the installation (so I thought). Screw this, I'm just going to find another ground wire and splice in. 20 minutes later I have a make shift splice with one of the provided splitters and found a suitable brown/black wire. Cross my fingers and hooked that up. Snaked the wires around the steering column and up a small, 1" diameter tunnel up to the back of the fuse box. Dismantled the glove compartment by unhooking the hinges, unscrewed the hinge cover, and removed the 5 screws holding the glove compartment in. Voila, dropped the fuse box and found the two remaining wires hanging down from the top of the tunnel. Inserted the blue/yellow wire into the top part of the fuse box (I think this is what provides power when you turn key to access II/Power on mode), inserted the green/yellow wire into fuse position 24 and...Realized I had inserted the wire into the wrong slot. There are 3 slots on a fuse panel, the top one I have no idea what it's for, the bottom one goes to the Central Control Unit and the middle one is where I'm suppose to insert the wire. Great I though, just pull the wire out, right? WRONG. I had to insert a tiny screw driver and pound the wire back out with a hammer because it's got this small tab that holds the wire into the harness/fuse panel. It took me about an hour's worth of struggling to get it out in decent shape.
Now that I got the wire into the right fuse panel, turn on the keys, put my finger over the front censor...VOILA! The mirror slowly dims. Another "successful" hack project completed. I just got to put the glove box back together. :)