[s-cars] Successful Frankenmirror installation

[Eric Rechlin]

Because I had the day off work today, and the weather finally cooled down to a 
nice 76 degrees, I have completed a Frankenmirror installation, including 
European convex glass and chrome housings, on my 1995.5 S6 Avant.

Thanks to Igor's instructions (and for him being a guinea pig for the rest of 
us), everything went fairly smoothly.  I didn't quite take the same approach 
as he did, but I did the same basic thing.  The glass on both my mirrors was 
badly corroded, and my passenger side mirror no longer went up and down, so I 
needed to do something, even if I didn't upgrade to a Frankenmirror.

I started out by purchasing two complete full-size (175mm) mirror assemblies 
for the 1998-1999 A6.  The part numbers on them are 4B1 858 499 and 4B1 858 
500, though that may be misleading, because the Family Album that seems to map 
those parts to the ~2002 S6.  I found them new on eBay for $265 shipped, but 
you might be able to save $20 off that if you're patient.

These housings came with the European glass, which is convex on both sides, 
with an even more convex section on the driver's side to eliminate the blind 
spot.  They came with primer on them only.

I did not want to have to paint the housings, so this gave me an excuse to get 
the chrome mirror cases.  I ended up spending about $129 (including shipping) 
on eBay for the chrome mirror housings.  These are not stick-on, but the 
entire mirror case.  They are made by In-Pro in Germany, part number 5146.

The driver's side was easy.  All I did was remove the two screws under the 
mirror to remove the lower black section, popped off the glass (pushing from 
behind and pulling from in front), removed the three screws holding on the 
body-color case, pulled off the case, put the new chrome case in, snapped in 
the new European mirror glass, and replaced the bottom cover.

The passenger's side was much more difficult, because this needed to be 
converted to a Frankenmirror, but was fairly well explained in Igor's notes 
(http://www.elektro.com/~audi/mirror/).

A few notes in hindsight:

* To remove the door panel trim, look here:
http://www.s-cars.org/postnuke/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=123

* To remove the mirror assembly, look here:
http://www.audifans.com/twiki/bin/view/Audi/MirrorDriversSide?skin=print.pattern

* The Torx bolt that holds the mirror in place is size T45.

* I only could fit one spring washer (11mm i.d., 27mm o.d., 3mm thick, 11 
cents at the nearby hardware store) in place of the old spring, unlike the 
several that Igor needed.

* I used the motor from the new A6 assembly rather than my old motor, because 
my old motor no longer worked for vertical adjustment, and the new motor 
worked perfectly, despite what the writeup said.

After driving around a bit with the European glass, I cannot believe that the 
US doesn't require that all cars have a convex driver's mirror.  I realize 
that it will take a little while to get used to "objects in mirror are closer 
than they appear" on both sides, but the complete elimination of the blind 
spot is a huge safety improvement worthy of mandating.

I ended up spending just short of $400, but considering my old mirrors and 
motor needed replacement anyway, it was well worth the investment.  And in the 
end, I also have a complete driver's side mirror assembly (sans glass) for a 
1998-1999 A6 left over, plus a bunch of other spare parts.

Regards,

Eric Rechlin