Side View Mirror Rebuild for 1987 Grand Wagoneer

[TimGee]

Hello all,

I've had my 1987 Grand Wagoneer for about a month and I've re-tensioned the cargo cover and put in a missing shift indicator - all thanks to this forum so I thought I'd add a little walk through of me replacing the guts of my driver's side powered side-mirror. I searched the forum and wasn't able to get a hit on this repair so I hope it's helpful.

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So, the side view mirror was half broken. The motor would travel side to side but not up and down so I purchased a used replacement from eBay hoping it would still have a fuctioning motor and it did. It came today and the swap would have been pretty easy. You just remove the two stainless bolts/screws from the mirror support and then pull up and detach the harness from the door cavity. My issue was that the eBay mirror's chrome housing and black trim were in rougher shape than my original so I struggled to figure out how to disassemble the mirror assembly so I could just replace the motor and keep my original housing and trim.

The trick to disassembling the mirror is that there are three screws that are hidden in the interior of the mirror housing. You need to gently shift the mirror out of the way and stick a phillips head screwdriver in there to remove them. Here are the bottom two screws behind the mirror within the housing:

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Then the real tricky one at the top of the mirror within the housing:

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This one is very difficult to get to as you're at risk of stripping the screw or damaging the mirror as the screw is behind the mirror and you can barely get an angle on it to unscrew. I found a bigger head phillips worked better than a smaller one. Once you have those three screws removed the housing will come apart but you'll need to release the wiring harness from the motor housing:

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Once you remove this connector by pulling back the plastic locking bar you'll be able to completely disassemble the mirror:

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I swapped out the black motor component and used the original chrome housing and black trim. If you're trouble shooting yours there's a chance that your motor may be good and that you just lost connection at one of the joints. There is one up/down and one left/right ball and socket connector. Make sure they are engaged as one of mine was disconnected. It would make for a quick and cheap fix. My original motor still needed replacing however.

Anyways. I got it all put back together and it's working well.

I hope this helps someone out there.

Tim

[Matt24601]

Nice

Sent from my SM-G977T using Tapatalk

[sirrus]

Thanks for the write up!

Just a thought - maybe replace Phillips screw with a hex socket ones? That way it would be easier to get them out next time (hopefully never though) using a hex wrench with a ball end?

[TimGee]

Thanks for the write up!

Just a thought - maybe replace Phillips screw with a hex socket ones? That way it would be easier to get them out next time (hopefully never though) using a hex wrench with a ball end?

That is actually a great idea considering that any replacement is just another 30 something year-old used motor. It's the top screw that would be important to replace. I was never able to tighten that one down totally.

Thanks Sirrus.

Tim

[Laredo Matt]

Thanks for the write up Tim!

I'm just getting ready to tackle disassembly of mine. I looked at the TSM and it doesn't have anything about removing the glass/motor assembly so it was no help.

I want to have the housing powder coated and need to remove the assembly and rubber. I didn't even see those screws until I saw your thread. Should be a snap now.

[TimGee]

Glad it helped Matt!