The mirrors on the van were in relatively good shape for their age cosmetically, however, one of the mirrors would only move in one direction and the other only in 3 directions. Based on my experience with old electrics, and the fact that I had to re attach one of the pieces of glass to the passenger mirror when i picked it up, I assumed that one was broken and that the mirror switch was probably bad as well. So i decided to replace them both with newer econoline tow mirrors. I was able to source some aftermarket OE style power mirrors from amazon for not to bad of a price. The first step was to remove the old mirrors from the van. I decided to document this in case anyone else is wanting info on the swap. There is probably a thread somewhere but i didn't find it on my search. There is a video that is on youtube detailing a mirror swap on a motorhome that is along the same lines as what i have done but just with much larger RV tow mirrors that i found very helpful.
Before removing mirror you have to take apart the door panel to access the bolts that hold the mirror in place. There are a total of 3 on the 1999 econolines. The black panel close to the pillar just pops right off to expose 2 of the bolts but the last bolt requires that you remove the entire door panel to access. Being that I have power windows need access to the connector hidden up in the front of the door to unplug and rewire.
Here you can see the panel covering the last nut that needs to be removed to detach the old mirror.
The door panel itself is held onto the door by 4 screws; 1 below the mirror, behind the door release, behind the power lock and window panel, and at the bottom right of the panel behind a circular cap. Removing these are pretty straight forward by inserting a flathead screwdriver into the slots and pushing in and prying them up. I made sure to use caution as I have broken many clips on vehicles as the plastic is brittle on older vehicles. Once these are removed you just pull the panel up to release it from the slots in the door that plastic tabs are secured in and then lift off.
(Door handle screw)
(Screw removed behind power controls panel)
The panel removed gives access to the speaker which i removed for access to the power mirror wires. I was peeling the plastic off at first, which is unnecessary if you just go through the speaker hole. I removed my speakers as an after thought. They had dry rotted in the van producing horrible distortion so i decided to replace them while i was in there rather than go through the process of removing the panel one more time.
(Panel removed for wire access and mirror removal)
Once all this is completed it is a pretty straight forward removal of the mirror by loosing the nuts and removing the mirror. One helpful trick i learned it to have the window down so that you can just reach through to hold the mirror in place and prevent it from crashing down to the ground. I know this seems pretty straight forward but when you start working outside in 97% humidity and 90* F you tend to focus on other things like why cant i breathe and where is a towel lol. All the southern showers don't help the situation. Once the mirror was removed I took the new mirror and held it up to the old mirrors location. As the new mirror was a 4 stud vs 3 stud design I knew some drilling would be in order. The top and bottom stud line up with existing mirror holes but need to be enlarged to accommodate the new mirror studs. I used a sharpie to mark the locations of the two new holes that needed drilled out and used a drill bit to create a pilot hole and a step bit to enlarge them to the appropriate size.
After drilling the outer side of the door i realized that there is a support in the way of the new hold second from the bottom that was creating an issue. Rather than deal with compromising the integrity of the door itself i just removes the offending mirror stud with a reciprocating saw. I believe on some mirrors it is just a stud but on my particular mirrors it was a cast piece that had approximately a 2" stud screwed into the casting. After that it was just and easy bolt the mirror up utilizing the old or newly supplied hardware. You well need some large washers to put on the studs in the inner side of the door panel to hold the mirror for the existing holes as they were large to accommodate the hold hardware that sat inside the door. The new bolts sit on top of the inner door skin. If your studs aren't long enough you can unscrew them a bit and use nuts as spacers then tighten them back down making the study and locking them into place.
The wiring can be a bit tedious as you have to cut off the old mirror wires and wire them to the new mirrors. For my van the connector was a stock 3 prong vs a 6 prong on the new mirror. It was at this time i installed a new mirror switch as the mirrors were not function properly with the faulty switch. Once all wiring is done just test everything before you button the door panels up
Here is the finished product. Tow mirrors on my 1999 van.
