How to Replace Tow Mirrors 2007-13 Chevy Silverado 1500

Mike:

Hi, I'm Mike from 1AAuto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.Sue:

Hi, everyone. This is Sue from 1AAuto. Today, we're going to be installing these Trail Ridge tow mirrors on our 2011 Silverado. These mirrors come with backup spotlights, they extend, and they have the blinker inside of them. We're going to wire them up, and also show you the option package to go from black to chrome. If you need mirrors for your vehicle, click on the link in the description and head on over to 1AAuto.com.

We're going to replace these driver mirror and passenger mirror with upgraded Trail Ridge mirrors. These ones have been on for several years now, and they got kind of beat up. They never hooked up the backup light. We're going to show you how to hook up the backup spotlights, and wire them in for you.

We're going to use a trim tool and I'm going to pop off the cover first that protects the mounting bolts for the mirror. That's just a quick twist at the top. You can see the clips, where they go. We'll set that aside. I'm going to move straight from right to left over for you. This piece comes off the handle. Just give it a little pop, hopefully. There's your clip on the bottom, clip on the top.

I'm going to move down to the inner handle here in this little trap door. Going to pop that open. I like to use a little pocket screwdriver, seems to be a little bit easier. Then, the handle here. We've got another cover back here. Pop that free. The last thing is the door lock. Has a little notch. Going to pop that out. That doesn't come all the way out. It stays like that, because it's just a clip that pushes in when we readjust it on that rod.

There is five mounting bolts for this door panel. It's a 10mm socket. There's just one missing, so people have been in the door before. Not uncommon. I'm just going to loosen these up. Take these pieces out. Leave the bolts right into place, and I can set that aside. The inner door handle bolts. Like I said, they're all 10mm sockets. Then two on the door handle area. Going to pop up the main window switch here. This end guides in this way, so we're going to pop it in the rear. Then slide it out the front. Try not to ever break that clip.

We're just going to dis-unplug all the clips here. Sometimes it helps if you have a tool that you can push down, or if you can manipulate it. These are tabs. This one's a little different than the others. It helps if you have a door trim tool to guide it in there and pull up on that tab. Because it's going to go out this way. Now we're ready to pull up on the panel. Just going to tuck that in. There's also a harness right here. See the body clip right there, just going to push that through.

There's pop clips around the edge, so we can take a trim tool, or see if your fingers fit in. In this case, it's been off quite a few times. Now once all the clips are pushed out, go straight up. Then rest it. Now, this cable has, the housing broke, so last person in here, looks like they pure a wire tie in. We're just going to cut free that wire tie, and then slide the cable out of the handle.

With your cutting tools, just snap that wire. That tie out of the way. I'll see if I can get this harness out of the way for you. That normally, we'd clip in there, but that housing's cracked and broken. Now you're going to, see how that cable goes into the, that snaps in that way? The last person got real ingenious and drilled a hole here and a hole here, so that they could run this tie through and hold it in there steady. It seems to be working.

Now, we're going to remove the door insulation. The reason for that is, because the wires for this mirror run down through clips and into this. Normally, I could just pull this out and just run it through, but I'm going to be wiring this. I want you guys to get a full vision of what's going on here. Like I said, this door panel's been off several times. Probably from the last installation.

This is the factory harness right here. Comes with this plug. This one goes to the mirror. The aftermarket mirror that was installed a couple years ago, we're just going to pull it right through here. Undo the wire clips. Installation foam. Set that aside. This mirror has three mounting bolts. Those studs come through the door frame. It has three 10mm head nuts with washers on them. I'm going to use a 10mm socket, I'm just going to loosen these up. Going to leave the top one on to anchor it. I'm going to take the two bottom nuts off.

Before I start spinning that, I'm going to come out and support that. This door has a rain guard on it. It's not that tricky. Just got to slide it on and through. I'm going to pull the bottom part out first. See how it just kinda right up in there like that. Hold on to that, run the harness through. Now we're ready to install the new one.

I'm just going to hang it on out here. Fish those wires right through the hole. Now, I'm going to go through the top first. Guide those studs in. There you go. I luckily left my mounting nuts close by. Be kind of difficult to chase them and hold this mirror at the same time. Set them all.

Before I snug it, I like to take a feel and maybe look at, make sure the trim is all lined up properly. It does have a nice little guide pin here. I have marks from the original mirror mounting, so I'm going to go with all that. Then I can snug it right down. The harnesses come with these body clips in them, which is a nice little feature. Might have to move it around, just to get it in the right spot. Just needs to come down just a smidge. I can line that right up with the factory hole. Same with the bottom one. Going to run this right through this door protector jamb. Going to come right out the other side.

If you couldn't get it to pull all the way through, you could just loosen up these two mounting bolts, which are 10mm head. We're going to let that fall through. Normally, I would just throw the panel back on, but right now, we're going to leave this out, because we're going to show you how to wire up the actual harness, so that the reverse spotlight works.

When it comes to wiring these mirrors for these nice reverse backup lights on the mirrors, they come with this kit, with all the scotch clips, and what you need to purchase are two add-a-fuse connectors, and a couple butt connectors.

This is the end that's going to connect to the harness here for the mirror operation. This is going to be over here freely. At the ends, where they ship them to you, they have them precut down here. First thing I'm going to do is undo the door jamb factory harness. Now, these are plastic clips that lock into the body and the door. They're just little tabs, so I'm going to push in with my body tool. Then you can see the harness is exposed. I'm going to do the same on this side. That way when I fish this through the door jamb, you got something more to, easier hopefully, flexible to work with.

I took the head off a wire tie and I taped it to the harness, so this way, I have something firm to pull on and guide it through. I'm going to guide it through here, and hopefully feel it flex around. This is going to take some patience and time. In the end, it is worth it, because these lights on this mirror are pretty awesome.

I started to fish my wire through. What I did was I scrunched up this harness, to be as small as it could be, like this. I have a pair of long gooseneck needle nose. Without damaging the harness, I can feel it in there, and I just ran this through. All the way through. Right out to the other side. As you can see right there. Tip just runs through. Then I grab the wire, and I squeezed it, and I just pulled it right out. Just took my time, gently pulled the wire out. Then I ran the harness right through.

That is the way I did it. You can try a coat hanger, wire coat hanger, you just got to be careful not to scratch the other harness wires, because you don't want water damage in the future. I know it's a lot of wire, but we don't know the exact amount we're going to need, so I'll cut it at the other end, once I'm done and installation is, prepping is done for the installation.

It's going to go through the frame hole right here. You can't miss it, it's a big lovely factory harness that runs right through here. There's plenty of room, my hands go right through, as you can see. It's right here on the driver's side kick panel by the e-brake. I'm going to pull the wires right through. These wires do have to run out to the battery junction. You want to get as much of the wires pulled through as you can.

I like to keep the wire taut, I don't want it to loop over and pinch itself when I pull on it. This is really a small wire. It can actually break a wire internally. Then, it won't work, and you'll be chasing that around for some time. We're going to fish it right through here. Follow the other harnesses right it. I want it to be protected. I'm going to actually end up taping it on the existing harness that's here. If you have wire loom, I strongly suggest using it. You want to keep any wire that has power running through it coated, because if it rubs on a metal door, you'll short circuit out.

This is wire loom. I'm going to run that right down inside there. Open it up, it's a split system. You just push the wires in. Anywhere that I can't secure the wires, I'm going to leave that loom on there. I'm going to end up taping this right here with some electrical tape.

When putting this harness boot back on, the plastic connector, you want to see the rubber guide? You want to make sure that goes right up that. Then you're going to just wrap that rubber around the plastic. Maybe you can use a pair of needle nose to help pull it over. You're going to go follow this process all the way around, so that the seal is complete when you click it on the door.

Push them back in until you hear them both click. Now you have a nice sealed harness in the door jamb.

I'm going to fish the wires out into the engine cavity. Over here, there's a rubber where the boot, that has a cable going through it. To access that, I'm going to pop this cover off this little wire junction box. I'm going to pull this down out of the way. There's a tab here and a tab here, they're identical on both sides, at a pivot point. I'm just going to squeeze the tabs and slide it down. Then I'm going to lift it up. Paying attention that this is a wiring harness and you really want to treat it with a little gentle hand. Now, I have exposed the boot that I'm going to be using.

We're going to remove this bracket, so you have a better visual with the camera, of seeing the boot that I'm going to locate to pull the cable harness through. Now I'm going to guide my harness through the rubber boot in the firewall. Now, I'm out the engine compartment, and I can see where my wire had been pulled right through. Now I'm going to finish pulling it through here. You can use a coat hanger, or, that boot is pretty accessible. Always helps to have someone help you too.

I took the liberty to inside, I took my harness and I laid it out straight, so that I wouldn't bind or catch anything. I'm going to take a look in two seconds, I'm going to go back in there, make sure I'm not wrapping around the brake pedal. It looks good in there. Nice, and it's almost going all the way through. This is where I'd like to use some more wire loom, or join it to some of the stuff that the factory had already installed. We're only going to go up to this fuse junction box. Not going to need this whole harness.

Like I said earlier, you don't know how much you're going to need for the door. Use the harness that it comes with for the full length, then cut it just to the length you need.

Reattach the water boot to the firewall, just by poking it in place there, snapping it in. Making sure I have enough wire left inside here, because we're going to attach this underneath to a harness that's going to go from the passenger side, and running over here, so that I can connect it here, for the feed.

I'm going to put this junction box back in place by putting the two round ears on the bottom right in that slot there, and just pushing forward and clicking. Now I'm going to put the cover back on. It gives pretty good self-description, this goes on the top, and the round piece goes on the bottom. This prong is going to go right inside there, and it's going to just snap right into place.

I'm just looking for a good place to run this. You want it to be free of anything. The e-brake pedal, your brake pedal. To do the passenger mirror and door panel, it's the same identical way as the driver's side. I've run my wires from my new mirror just like I did on the driver's side. I used some wire loom, I wire tied it secured, ran it through the door jamb, and I'm going to be running it across over to the driver's side. First, I'm going to put the door panel on and show you where to attach this to the new mirror.

This is the new mirror harness. You have a brown blue with a white tracer, that comes with the harness. Connect those two together if they haven't already been connected from the factory. Then, your red and white tracer and black and white tracer are going to connect to the yellow and orange side of the mirror harness. Guide the pins right up, see where the lock goes, slide it in, clicks. This'll be going into the actual harness from the factory. You see orange and white, you have orange and white wires with this. You know that's going to be the harness. Match it up. Snap it in.

Now we're getting ready to put the door panel on. Now I'm going to reinstall the inside passenger handle cable. You're going to put it through the aluminum notch there. Pull it tight and run it up through that little slot. Then click it in place, pushing. Now I can run the wires up through the switch hole, and I'm ready to mount. Making sure everything's in place. Make sure all the bolt holes line up.

This harness goes down inside here. You put the little piton, opposite hole. This one goes here. Connects. Not as many as the driver's side, because the driver's side has the mirror control and the four window control.

I previously installed the foam before I put the panel on. I'm going to line up each clip, all three clips, and snap it into place. Now, we're going to reinstall the inner handle. The forward handle, with our two bolts with the 10mm socket. Then we're going to install our door handle bolts, and then the two inner bolts by the armrest.

Now I'm going to install the door lock plastic sleeve. I'm going to put it down as far as I can. Two guide spots. Threaded rod's going to go inside there. Bring it up, so that you get the proper depth. Right before it thrusts and hits there, I'm just going to snap it in. Now I can put the trim on the passenger side handle. Put it in the right way. Guide it. Just snap it in. Then I'm going to put the armrest/handle one in. Last one is the inner door handle. This little guide right there, so it's in the back, and then the two clips.

Now that I've pulled the wire through the door jamb, and I'm running it along up underneath this plastic cover for the blower motor, right by the passenger foot, and it runs into the center. I'm just, I tape it up, so I ran it up and through there, out of the way, and up and out onto the driver side.

Here is my full harness that I installed from the driver's door, out to the junction box in the engine compartment. I'm going to cut these and that way, now I can splice these two wires together, to make a junction, and all red wires together to make a junction. On this case, I'm going to end up peeling these back, each one back, and using a waterproof butt connector, install that. Then I'm going to crimp that, need a crimping tool. This is a waterproof butt connector, because it's already got heat-shrink wrapped around it. I'm going to use my little torch and I'm going to melt those connectors together, when it comes time. That'll make a good seal. Then I'm going to end up cleaning it up with electrical tape, tying things up with cable ties. Making sure it's free from anyone kicking it.

Now, with all my wires connected, I can go install the fuse installers in the harness out by the junction block. I do that last, because I don't want any exposed wire once I plug it into the fuse box. I'm going to let those hang and come back and fix those after.

Now I'm in the engine compartment, where I'd run the wires up through that firewall earlier. I'm going to open up my junction box out here in the engine. There's a luck tag, gives you an arrow. Just pull on it, and pull up. Easier said than done. Pull up.

There's a description inside. There's a diesel and a gas, this is a gas engine, so we're going to be using this panel over here for description. I've already taken the liberty to look it over and there's an open fuse here that runs to the trailer wires, which will already be hardwired to factory for the backup lights. Then the other section for directionals is wired for the trailer. This vehicle doesn't have a trailer hitch on it. I can safely use those two plugs in this fuse box.

I have gotten my fuse taps, and I've set them aside. I'm going to make sure I got plenty of harness that I can electrical tape it to another loom, wire loom, or fill it with wire loom. I'm going to give it a safe cut right about here, and discard this wire.

Now I can join the fuse tap wire harness to the actual harness. Before I do any heat shrinking or finalizing, I'm going to plug everything in and make sure it works. Good news is, it's all working the way it's supposed to.

I'm going to unplug it now that we know it works, everything's good. You just want to heat it up, and the shrink wrap will melt right around it. There should be a glue inside here, so that helps seal it from water. Fish the wire loom down on the harness. Now I can reinstall the cover.

Got to be a little careful with an open flame. Inside a vehicle, and in the engine compartment. I think I have faith you already know that. Now, with everything connected and ready to go, I'm going to take my time, I'm going to tie it up with electrical tape, and some wire ties, and make sure it's clear of everything and anything. You won't even know I was here.

Now I'm going to put the driver's door panel back on. I'm just going to, once again, I like to clean this up a little, and to tape this in there. Make sure it's not hitting anything. I connected, make sure you connect your new mirror connector harness together. The mirror harness is the factory ... This is the harness from the factory. Those two connect together. The yellow and orange connect to the black and red wire that you ran through the door. This door panel's the exact same way as the passenger.

Now that we have our mirrors installed, the owner wants chrome covers. We're going to take off the black that it's shipped with, and we're going to install the chrome covers. On this design, there's a couple ways to do it. You could remove the glass, and then you take four screws out of the trim panel, and then you remove the plastic clips on the side. We found if we remove the black plastic, it's more flexible. We go in, and pop it, that comes right out. To install the bottom piece, you just reverse the process. Line those pins up on the top. Snap it up in.

Put it in here, and work my way around. Snap that black piece off. I'm going to put the bottom pins in. Snap right in. Now you're ready to go. Mike:

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