Converting to Corrado mirrors

[QBee]

So I have finally had enough of repairing my Citroen CX standard issue Chimaera mirrors and have bought some almost perfect Corrado mirrors.

Corrado mirrors, for those who don't know, were standard issue on Grief SEs and all T cars.

Mirrors purchased, £50 for the pair.
Adaptor mounts purchased from Fibreon, £84 per pair.
Angle grinder deployed to fit one to t'other.
Door opener buttons transferred from one to t'other.

Now for the tricky bit. The wiring. Chimaera mirrors have 7 wires, Corrado 8.
Ignore the door opener two wires and the mirror heater element two wires.
That leaves how to wire the remaining 4 wires to three.

It doesn't seem to be straight forward.
Chimaera uses a relay and one common wire, with the other two providing connection to up/down and side to side respectively.
Corrado, as fitted to a Cerbera, uses a Cerb ECU, which seems to be two relays.
I cannot get a decent Cerb ECU, so can anyone suggest please how to proceed.
So far I am veering towards "manuel", the faulty Spanish waiter method of adjustment.

Chimaera wiring diagram:



Cerbera (Corrado) wiring diagram:



Someone must have done this. There are some good auto electricians amongst you. Is there a simple solution please?

[ray von]

Can't help with the wiring, but what needs grinding? Been thinking about this for the Griff but not if it's a fk on.

[QBee]

On the bottom of the mirror mounts, the bolt guides protrude down by about 8mm. Perfect for fitting to a Corrado, but they need grinding off for a TVR, as the adaptors are flat on the upper surface, so need a flat lower surface to mate with. Didn't take too long to do, but the Corrado casting is just that, a fairly hard metal casting.

[ray von]

Ah got you.So not much really. I think I'll have the Spanish edition ones if I go for it. Dave Spenceley (spend) will know how to do the wiring.

[ray von]

http://tvr.dspen.com/Corrado-Mirror/CorradoMirror....

Any help?

[QBee]

I will post some pictures once I have them fitted. Car is being painted right now.

The underside of the Fibreon adaptor fits into the vacant hole in the door, and the entire mirror is fixed in place by an M8 bolt with a big washer, fixed upwards into a captive nut in the Fibreon adaptor. So the door cards need to come off. Good time to lubricate your window runners.
You then need to drill a hole down through the adaptor, about 10 mm, and through the door (inside the vacated depression in the door) for the wiring. Not difficult, just needs to be done carefully.

From your old mirrors you will need the door opener switch, and the rubber washer that is around the bottom of the mirror stall. Door opener switch is held in place with a 14mm thin nut. Yes, 14 mm. First time I have used that spanner. Pliers to hold the body of the switch while you undo the nut. You can position the opener switch behind the metal casting inside the Corrado mirror. The glasses are quite tricky to get out - I got my local VW dealer to extract them for me with a promise of seeing the car when finished!
New glasses, should you need them, are under a tenner on Ebay

[QBee]

Thanks ray von.
I didn't understand it, so passed the link on to my TVR electrical expert

[Steve_D]

This is all you need.


Give me a PM if you need it in another format. It was drawn in Visio.

Steve

[QBee]

Thanks Steve D. Do you have a sharper image please? I cannot actually read any of the text. Again, I will pass it on to the expert, as I don't understand it.

Ray Von, he said "ah, that's not difficult" on Messenger last night, and we agreed on next Sunday morning for the work. I can drive with "door mirrors to manual" until then (to paraphrase flight attendants)

Thanks both. You have given me a solution.

PS, they are so much better made mirrors than the ancient French ones

[Steve_D]

Yes, no matter what I tried exporting it from Visio screwed it up.
Do you have visio? If so I will send you my whole car wiring diagram. If not then I can do a pdf.
Either way ping me a PM then I can attach it to the reply.

Steve

[Mr Haribo]

Any pics of them on the car ? often thought about it .......

[ukdj]

Steve_D said:

Yes, no matter what I tried exporting it from Visio screwed it up.
Do you have visio? If so I will send you my whole car wiring diagram. If not then I can do a pdf.
Either way ping me a PM then I can attach it to the reply.

Steve

Not wishing to hijack antonys thread, but I'm chasing a couple of wiring faults that my current diagrams dont appear to cover, I'd appreciate a copy of your wiring diagams please Steve (Visio is fine)

[ianwayne]

Forgive me for questioning that page from the bible but is it correct for all cars?

The heated mirror elements seem to have the wires UO (on my car this is blue & orange) connected to each other but have no supply (?) B is obviously the black earth return but the diagram shows no supply to wire UO.

If you have the mirror door release buttons, it is a facelift version so is the joystick the same wiring as the early ones?

Although I don't know the key for that diagram, I have had to attend to my mirrors in the past (2000 reg) so noted all the colours. There is a 5 pin connector for the mirrors in each door. The wire colours for the driver's side motors are the top 3 wires of this connector:

Brown >> Yellow / black
White >> Red / blue
Black >> Pink

Passenger side:

Brown >> Black / Orange
White >> Grey
Black >> Green

The heated mirror wires both sides form the bottom 2 wires of the 5-pin connectors. In both sides, these are:

Black >> Black
Black >> Blue / Orange. This is the heated element and these could be connected the other way round without a problem.

Yes there are 3 black wires at each connector!

The door release buttons are the ridiculously thin and flimsy blue wires that go to a separate 2 pin connector. This connector will go through the door mounting hole OK without removing the pins.

Hope this is of help. Central TVR do a lot of mirror conversions so they may be worth asking but they may not be keen to divulge how it's done.

[QBee]

Mr Haribo said:

Any pics of them on the car ? often thought about it .......

Car is being painted at the mo, back to me later in the week, when I will put the mirrors back on.

I can photograph then.

Wiring being done on a Sunday by a Cerbera owning electrician friend who understands these things.

I will do a complete write up for the community, as I have invested quite a bit of time in it.
It's not actually too complicated, and total cost, including electrician but excluding painting, will be under £200. The key is to get your mirrors from a VW breakers.....

[QBee]

Steve_D said:

Yes, no matter what I tried exporting it from Visio screwed it up.
Do you have visio? If so I will send you my whole car wiring diagram. If not then I can do a pdf.
Either way ping me a PM then I can attach it to the reply.

Steve

Will do

[QBee]

ianwayne said:

Forgive me for questioning that page from the bible but is it correct for all cars?

The heated mirror elements seem to have the wires UO (on my car this is blue & orange) connected to each other but have no supply (?) B is obviously the black earth return but the diagram shows no supply to wire UO.

If you have the mirror door release buttons, it is a facelift version so is the joystick the same wiring as the early ones?

Although I don't know the key for that diagram, I have had to attend to my mirrors in the past (2000 reg) so noted all the colours. There is a 5 pin connector for the mirrors in each door. The wire colours for the driver's side motors are the top 3 wires of this connector:

Brown >> Yellow / black
White >> Red / blue
Black >> Pink

Passenger side:

Brown >> Black / Orange
White >> Grey
Black >> Green

The heated mirror wires both sides form the bottom 2 wires of the 5-pin connectors. In both sides, these are:

Black >> Black
Black >> Blue / Orange. This is the heated element and these could be connected the other way round without a problem.

Yes there are 3 black wires at each connector!

The door release buttons are the ridiculously thin and flimsy blue wires that go to a separate 2 pin connector. This connector will go through the door mounting hole OK without removing the pins.

Hope this is of help. Central TVR do a lot of mirror conversions so they may be worth asking but they may not be keen to divulge how it's done.

Very helpful, thank you.
I have often noticed that the Bible is more orientated towards the Griff and the earlier Chims. I was more looking at the principles of how it works, and what is different in the Corrado mirrors.
My sparky thinks he can see how to do it. I can connect the opener wires myself, so I can get in and out of the car. The rest will be left to him, to make a proper job of it all.

[spikep]

If you are reprinting, why not get rid of the adaptor like I did.

[QBee]

Thanks for the thought, and yes, that's a neater solution.
When I first got the mirrors I saw a Griff SE the next day with the adaptors, and after that my mind was set on that train of thought.
Now too far down the repaint track to go your excellent route, but others, take note.

My mirrors don't look too bad with the adaptors fitted

[ClassicChimaera]

QBee said:

Thanks for the thought, and yes, that's a neater solution.
When I first got the mirrors I saw a Griff SE the next day with the adaptors, and after that my mind was set on that train of thought.
Now too far down the repaint track to go your excellent route, but others, take note.

My mirrors don't look too bad with the adaptors fitted

Is this your preferred colour and final finish Anthony.

Very nice job indeed.

[QBee]

Yup, that's my choice from Alan's colour range. I like bright colours for TVRs. This is close to a reflex colour I have seen on a Cerbera being serviced at Mat Smith's establishment.