I think I may ne mistaken in what stock SA non-electric mirrors look like.

I've always thought that they look just like the electric mirrors (with a rigid "head" mounted immovably on the base) except that the glass gets positioned by hand.

Am I wrong?

I've had a couple folks offer me stock manual mirrors now that look like my aftermarkets - - where the whole mirror head pivots on the mounting base.

Anyone with for-sure pictures of stock SA manual mirrors, I'd love to see them.

 

Here you go!

 

if you need a set of non-electric, let me know. if have a collection of SA side mirrors. I use them in my old school cars and FB's. the non-electric side mirror is slightly larger than the 81-85.

 

wacky, love your rx-3's ...especially the V3 painted one w/ the epsilons



and i've never seen mklll's look better than on your black car

 

yeah that tender blue RX-3 really is an amazing car..he needs to post more pics of it

 

or...
this is the SA mirror in euro-spec....
fixed body with pivoting glass.

Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

sorry about that; i posted to the wrong thread above

 

Get off mah thread!!! (jk)

 

here is the drivers and passenger stock mirrors on my '79 Limited

passenger mirror glass "magnifies " the reflection a little larger than actual

 

Those are pivoting-head, fixed-base, right?

I'm tired of my plastic aftermarket replacements; they actually look ok, but they are always getting jarred out of alignment by idiots in parking lots that can't seem to walk by a car without bumping it's mirrors.

 

the 79 Limited did have the fixed base and pivoting head. they used the same manual mirror for the S model from 81-85.

 

Yeah the mirrors on my 80 SA are fixed base, pivoting body. The passenger side is hardly ever aligned correctly from a$$hats bumping it as they brush paste the car. Don't have any pics, sorry.

One problem I have is the passenger side glass is loose and jiggles around some. Anybody know an easy fix for that? Ok, done with the thread jacking.

 

DD the FB electric mirrors will bolt right on - and depending on the production date of your 80, it could have the hole for the electric harness in your doors, AND the dash harness prewired to accept the door-mirror harness, should you want to "electrify" the mirrors. You'd just need to add the (rather rare) SA mirror switches (for which it will also be prewired for)...
Otherwise, you still get stock, OEM look and no grief with mirrors getting knocked outta whack.

Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

Stu;
I know my doors have the harness holes (seen 'em before) and I think it has the prewire (square 4-hole white connector, blue wires?) under the dash but not all the way into the doors. Building custom wiring for them wouldn't phase me.

Knowing that SA's were available with power mirrors decides it for me. I'm going that route.

I always wondered what that flat spot under the dash was meant to mount! I'll probably have to fab switches, though. Sounds like finding the switch assembly will be a long-term effort.

Can you grab more detailed pix of the switch assembly, or is that a 'file' photo from somewhere else?

 

DD-
I expect you'll find the main harness has mirror wiring running right to the inside of (or near to) each fender well/kick panel, all ready to plug into your supplied door mirror harness (which any electric mirrored FB wreck will have, usually all wrapped in with the power window wiring too). There are actually TWO harness connections behind the instr cluster for a total of 12 wires. Pics attached. Will have to dig out my spare switch for a detail shot, as the first (posted earlier) is from inside my SA.
Also got a mazda service bulletin that includes the SA wiring for these mirrors, something the Wiring Diagram lacks - tho the FB diagram likely works too.

Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

Stu, DD, others

any thoughts on how difficult it would be to set up a FB power mirrors on my (October '78) '79 project car ? I was thinking of putting the mirror switch where the choke is . (won't need it with the T2 going into it )

 

Here's some pix of what I ended up doing with the mirror switch, when I converted over to electric mirrors last fall - - I spent a horrendous amount of time and money coming up with the solution I wanted, but hey, that's what hobbies are for, right?

I ended up making a silicone mold of the factory mirror control bracket from an SA LS (Stu Aull graciously loaned me the part, now affectionately known as "Precious," because the damn things are rare as hare's teeth!) and then trying various materials to cast it. I came across a fast-setting hard polyurethane that takes paint well, is rigid enough, but also very tough & resistant to cracking or heat.

On my 80, there's a 2-screw indentation on the bottom of the left side dash just as shown in Stu's pic above, made specifically to accept that LS bracket, so the final result looks, I think, completely factory and slick as hell (tooting own horn, heh).

The original LS setup used a single switch with two joystick controls, which turned out to be pure unobtanium. I still hope one day to find one, but in the mean time I took my cast reproduction and cut an FB mirror switch into it. A very tight fit but with my legendary Dremel-fu I pulled it off. The hole on the other side turned out to be the perfect place to mount the switch for my fog lights.

Wiring was simpler for me, because my late-series 80 had a harness that was pre-wired for power windows and mirrors. I only had to supply the part of the harness that made the transit across the hinge areas and into the doors, and also had to work out an adaptation from the SA 8-wire mirror connection down to the FB 6-wire.

In your case you'd have to make a harness to run under the dash and into the doors, 4 wires to each side, and also tap power. About as hard as installing a stereo.

Physically, you'd maybe have some drilling to do to get the harness out of the body and into the door, and then to the mirror. The hole pattern for mounting the mirrors is the same; there's a steel doubler/reinforcement inside the door that carries the mirror weight.

I could probably be prevailed upon to pour you another of my knockoff LS switch brackets, if you wouldn't mind covering costs of time and materials of around $25 plus shipping. I believe my mold is still good, though I may need more urethane as it has limited shelf life & I used up most of what I had.

Pics:

Wiring adaptor:


My hand-cast LS switch bracket reproduction (aka Precious II):


Dremel-fu in progress; making the FB switch and my foglight switch fit


Test-fitting in position:


Closeups of painted part, showing the texture detail I was able to capture with the mold.



Finished project. End result of about 6 months' tinkering and around three hundred bucks spent on various kinds of mold and casting materials & processes before I found the right combo.





Bonus photo: Prototype of "Precious III," which will use a completely unlikely set of parts off of a used Jaguar(!) to get a closer-to-original look, once I have time to fiddle with the casting changes needed:

 

my SA did that too, i forget exactly what i did, but i took a business card, and cut little pieces to shim it.

i think between the glass and housing? now that i'm thinking about it, mine made rattling noises. this fixed it

 

What DD said!
Glen is the Can-Do god here. I get the luxury of having the right bits to plug-and-play. DD has the gray-matter to MAKE stuff work. Pure genius stuff there Glen. The OEM Mazda gods are humbled!

The only 2cents I could add might be to spend $15-ish on some OEM electrical connectors from:
http://www.easternbeaver.com/Main/El...onnectors.html
to avoid the clot of loose adapting terminals on DD's custom harness...

Stu Aull
80GS - Manual European Mirrors
Alaska

 

Man , I wish my wife would deliver as fast as you guys do ....... ugh , what ?

Glen , Stu , awesome stuff . I have a source for some mirrors and a switch . I am going to go ahead and get them . I may call you up on the incredible part fabrication , but not sure . I may get the wiring done by the stereo shop when I get a new system put in ...as you say , not much more difficult than a stereo install.

 

glen, outstanding mold!!! that thing looks o.e.!!! any pics of the actual mold?

 

I don't have any handy in the photobukkit, but might have some at home. It's not real impressive looking, it just looks like a big baby-blue brick of silicone from the outside.

 

Thank you, sir... I plan on getting some connector shells from those folks & retouching my adapter, & also my wiper motor connection which as usual went to dust and flinders some years back ( I replaced it with generic Molex connectors way back when).

Eastern Beaver hadn't been ID'd as a source around here yet, at the time I was finishing this project up, back in September.