Power mirrors in a 79-80 RX-7
(This also works the same for all first gens that didn't have Power
Mirrors to begin with!)
DISCLAIMER:
Be careful. If you hurt yourself, frankly, that's your problem. I'm not making you do any of this. If you wanna go ahead and do it, fine, but anything resulting from that is not my fault. I am assuming a modicum of automotive ability and common (?) sense here. If you don't have either, find someone who does to help you. This is a fairly simple project, but there is the potential for bloodshed and smoked wiring, possibly crispy-fried car if you have no clue.
WHY DO I WANT TO DO THIS?
Reaching across the car to adjust the passenger side mirror sucks. Especially when a lot of the early first gens I've seen don't even *have* a passenger side outside rearview mirror. So not only do you get a passenger side mirror, but you can adjust it at your leisure from your side of the car.
HECK YEAH, I WANT THAT! SO WHAT DO I NEED?
Find an 81-84 GSL in the wrecking yard, and yank the mirrors, the wiring from the doors into the car, the four-way adjusting switch, and as much of the power mirror wiring harness as you can get out of the car (some of it may be bundled into the main wiring harness and difficult to extract). It's only four wires to each side, so you can manufacture it, if necessary.
To remove the mirrors from the car, remove two phillips screws securing the mirror housing to the post. These are on the bottom of the housing. There will be a small connector inside the post, unplug this and remove the housing. Now there will be two more screws exposed inside the post at the bottom. These secure the post to the base. Remove the screws, and remove the post. Now two *more* screws are revealed; these hold the base onto the door. Remove screws, remove base, repeat for other side. Note that none of the left and right parts interchange, not even the bases. Also, you may note that the right side post is like a half inch longer than the left. This is normal, apparently. I guess it corrects the line-of-sight from the drivers' side. Incidentally, the power mirrors on like vintage 626's are the same, except for the bases. Post and housing are the same, even the positioning switch. This is good to know if you cant find a decent housing, but have the bases.
You'll have to pull the door panel and kick panel to get the wiring out of the door. There should be a connector in the kick panel area. I fabricated the harness from the switch to the left kick panel in my car, because I could only get about four inches at the switch end and about 3 inches of the kick panel end before it went into the main harness. I got all of the passenger side. Definitely get all the connectors, even if you can't get all the wire. You may also want to grab the wiring boots that house the wires from the door jamb to the boor. In fact, you could grab the power window mechanisms, wiring, and switches as well, or the entire door, and do the power windows as well! I'll be covering that later.
OK, WHERE DO I PUT ALL THIS STUFF?
The good news is that the mirrors bolt on to the manual mounting holes. The bad news is that you may have to drill your own if you weren't equipped with passenger side mirrors (get measurements from the donor car), and you will probably have to drill the hole for the wiring to pass through between the mounting holes even if you already have the mounting holes. Use the base to mark the position for this hole, and drill the smallest hole that will let the connector pass through
79-80s didn't have a power window or mirror option, so they don't have wiring boots from the door jamb to the door, but they still have the holes for it, filled with rubber plugs. Al you've got to do it pop these plugs, and either use the later boots, or just drill holes in the center of the plugs and pass you're tape-wrapped wires through them. The boots are neater, but the other method is adequate.
Now you've got to figure out where to put the positioning switch. The 81-85 has a nifty little flat spot on the dash for it, but our 79-80s don't have that. Any flat spot large enough for the switch will work, provided that it has room behind it for the back side of the switch. I put mine where the coin holders at the rear of the shifter boot bezel used to be (they sucked at holding change, anyway...). I filled in the holders (see pictures below), but that's not strictly necessary. If you cut carefully, you could fit the switch so that the holder on either side of the switch is usable. Alternately, it could be placed with the power window switches replacing the ashtray (if you're going the power window route), or you could fabricate a bracket to put it almost anywhere.
Once you've got a location, run you wires from there to the mirror connectors at the kick panels. If you have to build a harness, just use four wires and match up the colors at each end of you stub harnesses. A service manual with wiring diagram is handy here. Tape it all up neatly, and be sure you route the wires away from any moving bits and sharp edges. The two remaining wires on the switch connector are power (dark green) and ground (black). You can connect power to ignition or constant, your choice; factory is constant. That's basically it. Power mirrors are easy, aren't they?