Powered mirrors

[Daniel Gervais <itpmtlplant@videotron.ca>]

Last Weekend I finally got around to fixing my powered mirrors. I've had
the car for about a year and a half now and lets say that other items were
more pressing than mirrors (front suspension/sub frame bushings, front and
back wheel bearings, rust and paint job, crankshaft/camshaft seal,timing
belt and water pump)... hey now I know where I spend all my spare time. In
any case if some of you are curious about the mirrors, here is some info.
Once you get those darn mirrors off (thanks Fred ) you will see the mirror
swivel mecanism. It is powered by four wires, two for the motor and two for
the magnetic clutch wich decides wich of the planetary gears to engage. One
set  for each type of movement. The motor is actually a mabuchy brand
(sorry I cant spell) toy motor, in fact I repaired the motor brushes wich
were corroded using a cheap motor lying around ( they were actually the
same except for the shaft.  Of the four connectors on the backside of the
unit , only the ones for the motor were corrode, they had in fact fallen
off, and this for each mirrors.

The heated mirrors are made with two aluminium plates wich overlap each
other with a gap in between. This gap is filled with a block of resistive
copper. A real simple neat way of doing things. The thing look out here is
to have a good contact. By carefully lifting out the overlap portion
slightly you can remove the copper block, clean it along with the internal
sides of the gap. then to re-establish a good contact press down on the
raised portion (you can try to raise it by inserting a small screwdriver in
those two small holes while pressing down on the lip portion ) and then
re-insert the  copper block. Audi put in this fiberbased tape , mine was
not sticking anymore so I put in this hot melt glue to keep the block from
ever falling out ( I guess ) .  Make sure you clean the aluminium tab
connectors, aluminium corrodes in a white hard oxide while it may fool you
in thinking its clean.

Now the only thing that still doesn't work on the car are the heated seat,
too bad winter is fast approching.

Daniel Gervais
86 Coupe
Montreal Canada
itpmtlplant@videotron.ca