M3 mirror and ZHP Ribbon cable mirror questions

[nextelbuddy]

so i got a set of 2002 M3 mirrors of a parts car and got them disassembled and the base plate and cup sent off to the painters to get painted black and imola red.

my car is a 2003 and has ribbon cables and i have already removed the mirrors from my car for base plate fitment and just let them off for now.

my car does not have heated mirrors or power folding. they only move up down left right for adjustment purposes and the passenger side mirror tilts when going into reverse but other than that, no other extras.

the M3 mirrors has 2 wires going directly to the back of the mirror itself which i assume was a heated mirror which i dont care for or will use.

it seems so silly that I have to swap whole motors just to retain ribbon cables and then make new base plates?

is there no way to just keep the m3 motors with its own plugs and wire them up wire by wire to the harness in my door which is wired to the mirror control switch?

is it impossible? its just electrical signals, i dont see why you cant rewire and match up wires from the m3 motors to the ZHP door harness/mirror switch.

was there ever a year of E46 m3 mirrors that also came with ribbon cables? or was that only sedan and only after 2003 in sedans? i seem to only see reference to ribbon cables when people are working with post 2003 sedans.

[az3579]

I don't think there's a way to avoid swapping to the ribbon motors.

Also - no heated mirrors? I'm pretty sure those were standard here in the U.S., at least on our level of trim. Kind of like how H/K was standard on all ZHP's, something like that.

[Cadeez]

Good DIY here

http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/showthread.php?9723-Retrofit-OEM-M3-side-mirrors-doityourself&highlight=mirror+retrofit

[nextelbuddy]

Good DIY here

http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/showthread.php?9723-Retrofit-OEM-M3-side-mirrors-doityourself&highlight=mirror+retrofit

ive read that along with several other articles but it just seems really silly to say "well these wires and colors dont match up so i guess ill just swap over the whole ribbon cable motor and fab up new base plates out of plastic"

the Sedan vehicle mirror harness plugs are still normal wire plugs and are not ribbon cables so thats that.

he did awesome work but no where I have read online says why you can not rewire it they simply say you must transfer over the motors if you have ribbon cable motors.

no one says if its because of some type of incompatibility, a wiring issue, BUS system issue.. .nothing.. just that you have to do it.

I've started looking at the WDS wiring for Sedan outside mirror wiring and will attempt to match up signal wires with the M3 mirrors and use a multimeter to see if i can match up signal wires between the Sedan vehicle mirror plug harness and the M3 mirror motor harness.

if its just wiring it should work, if its a BUS incompatibility issue then I should be able to get the BUS or module from the M3 since i still have it as a parts car and see if that works or at the worse then it just doesn't work and i'm stuck doing the ribbon motor transfer method.



The issue i have with the link you included is that it doesn't show you exactly how to make the base plate such as specs, size dimensions. it just shows cutting some holes out of a dewalt box and hacking off some pieces and JB Welding nuts etc... so there is still some guess work in there which leaves a lot of room for error or interpretation and I want it to be perfect the first time and not havit to open it all back up later to fix something else.

[Pip]

If you can pull off the wiring it would be amazing. Would take the scariness out of the mod for most unless you have a sedan which needed modified base plates but that wasn't too hard.


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[az3579]

Even if it is possible, it's not even worth the effort. It's much easier and faster to just swap the motors and call it a day. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

I'm not sure how or why your car would be different, but my body harness connector still uses ribbon cables on the other end.

[nextelbuddy]

Even if it is possible, it's not even worth the effort. It's much easier and faster to just swap the motors and call it a day. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

I'm not sure how or why your car would be different, but my body harness connector still uses ribbon cables on the other end.

i dont think swapping motors is "easier" or "faster" especially since you have to make new base plates out of plastic thick plastic thathas to be a certain thickness and not everyone has a dewalt case lying around to cut up and agin there are no measurements to go by in the DIY either, its just "cut some new baseplates up oh look i found a dewalt case that was perfect"


the ribbon cables coming FROM the sedan mirror motors terminate in standard plugs and then they plug into the door wiring harness that has standard wiring and connectors.

Here is a pic of the 2 plugs in my door. these are what the ribbon motor harness connect to and they meet up with the switch.

28393

And here is the E46 m3 mirror motor plug .the brown and black are the heating element wires.

28394


i dont see why looking up the wires in the WDS cant give you proper signal.. i could most definitely be proved wrong and i'm ok with that but i refuse to believe with out proof that the only way to do this is swapping ribbon motors and making new DIY base plates that require some guesswork. i'm not trying to be condescending or rude but i havent seen anywhere that says it can not be done so i figured now is a good opportunity to at least try right?

[Cadeez]

By all means, go for it man. If there's another way to skin this cat then I'm sure all of us would be interested in knowing it. Keep us posted on your results

[anandoc]

OP, I am sure there are ways to connect the non-ribbon cables to your car. You will just have to look this up on WDS and do it since I don't think anybody has done this before (atleast not documented on any forum). I would be very curious to know if you figure it out because I do not like the ribbon cable mirrors due to the cable being too flimsy and prone to damage. Good luck!

[Sockethead]

Yep! go for it! I'd love to be able to use the M3 motors. I you can figure it out, that would save a lot of work.

[nextelbuddy]

By all means, go for it man. If there's another way to skin this cat then I'm sure all of us would be interested in knowing it. Keep us posted on your results


OP, I am sure there are ways to connect the non-ribbon cables to your car. You will just have to look this up on WDS and do it since I don't think anybody has done this before (atleast not documented on any forum). I would be very curious to know if you figure it out because I do not like the ribbon cable mirrors due to the cable being too flimsy and prone to damage. Good luck!


Yep! go for it! I'd love to be able to use the M3 motors. I you can figure it out, that would save a lot of work.

so finally came to the conclusion after 2 days of wiring testing that i could not get the sedan mirror memory module to talk to the e46 m3 mirror motors. they just seem to be incompatible signal wise. no wires spoke or gave signals from sedan modules to m3 mirror motor. blew few fuses, tested wiring and just didnt work.

i ended up going the long route of swapping over mirror motors and that is neither easy or fast lol.

i did take the time to document some more finer details that are not in the original DIY. I documented some more parts, their cost and where to get them as well as a very basic mirror motor base plate template that someone should be able to print to use as a great starting point. the OP of the DIY just showed him cutting some circles out of scrap plastic but did not give circumference, diameter, thickness, measurements of the bolt holes for correct orientation, size of hole for the sedan mirror motor to fit in the center etc... this template should put someone much more closer than i started out with and hopefully the original DIY can be supplemented with these updated directions. i will post my updates in that DIY thread to try to keep everything in one place.

[az3579]

I remembered that it wasn't doable just didn't remember the details as to why. The reason you mentioned sounds familiar. Sorry you couldn't get it to work.

Ribbons are a PITA.

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[terraphantm]

so finally came to the conclusion after 2 days of wiring testing that i could not get the sedan mirror memory module to talk to the e46 m3 mirror motors. they just seem to be incompatible signal wise. no wires spoke or gave signals from sedan modules to m3 mirror motor. blew few fuses, tested wiring and just didnt work.

i ended up going the long route of swapping over mirror motors and that is neither easy or fast lol.

i did take the time to document some more finer details that are not in the original DIY. I documented some more parts, their cost and where to get them as well as a very basic mirror motor base plate template that someone should be able to print to use as a great starting point. the OP of the DIY just showed him cutting some circles out of scrap plastic but did not give circumference, diameter, thickness, measurements of the bolt holes for correct orientation, size of hole for the sedan mirror motor to fit in the center etc... this template should put someone much more closer than i started out with and hopefully the original DIY can be supplemented with these updated directions. i will post my updates in that DIY thread to try to keep everything in one place.

What might be possible is to just retrofit the old style mirror modules. At this point I'm not sure whether it'd be easier to do that or to just modify the ribbon motors to fit in the M3 housings.

[az3579]

What might be possible is to just retrofit the old style mirror modules. At this point I'm not sure whether it'd be easier to do that or to just modify the ribbon motors to fit in the M3 housings.

Would you lose any functionality by doing this? Any idea why they switched to this crappy ribbon setup?

[terraphantm]

I don't think you'd lose any functionality - My M3 doesn't seem to be missing any functionality. I think they switched to save costs (the new modules are somewhat simpler electrically since the GM5 is what controls them)

[az3579]

I don't think you'd lose any functionality - My M3 doesn't seem to be missing any functionality. I think they switched to save costs (the new modules are somewhat simpler electrically since the GM5 is what controls them)
You wouldn't know if the door module setup can be retrofitted, would you? I'm guessing the connector coming from the body harness wouldn't be compatible with a door module setup. Knowing BMW they probably made everything different so it can't be reverted...

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[terraphantm]

I've never actually tried. I imagine you'd have to add the wiring yourself, though I'm not sure what it would need beyond power, ground, and K-bus

[rguti153]

so finally came to the conclusion after 2 days of wiring testing that i could not get the sedan mirror memory module to talk to the e46 m3 mirror motors. they just seem to be incompatible signal wise. no wires spoke or gave signals from sedan modules to m3 mirror motor. blew few fuses, tested wiring and just didnt work.

i ended up going the long route of swapping over mirror motors and that is neither easy or fast lol.

i did take the time to document some more finer details that are not in the original DIY. I documented some more parts, their cost and where to get them as well as a very basic mirror motor base plate template that someone should be able to print to use as a great starting point. the OP of the DIY just showed him cutting some circles out of scrap plastic but did not give circumference, diameter, thickness, measurements of the bolt holes for correct orientation, size of hole for the sedan mirror motor to fit in the center etc... this template should put someone much more closer than i started out with and hopefully the original DIY can be supplemented with these updated directions. i will post my updates in that DIY thread to try to keep everything in one place.
Post them notes u made

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