I broke the right side mirror and have ordered a new piece of glass with the heating element in it. After reading many posts here I am still uncertain about the R&R process. It seems to me that I should just be able to carefully remove the broken pieces of mirror down to the existing backing material (plastic?) and glue the new piece of mirror to this backing. Is this the case for replacing just the glass or am I in for more fun than I thought? I have the FSM but I do not think the glass alone is covered and any repair proceedure.
Thanks
Howard

 

If you ordered the heated tow mirror replacement glass (part # 05086219AA) then it comes complete with the plastic backing plate. There is no need to remove the broken glass from the old assembly. The mirror glass is secured to the power pack (housing) by a rounded retainer wire. You can see this wire by pushing the top center of the glass toward the front of the vehicle. Once the glass is as far as it can go, look between the mirror base and glass in order to see the wire retainer hook ends. You will need needle nose pliers to remove the glass as well as the heater wire terminal clips. I have attached a copy of the trailer mirror instruction document. This illustrates the removal and replacement procedure. This is an easy job which taakes about 15 minutes.

 

This is the ebay link for the mirror I bought:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...OU%3AUS%3A1123

It states that there is no backing plate so what am I in for?
Thanks
Howard

 

I haven't replaced the "glass only" in a towing mirror since the heated towing mirror assembly is available at a minimal extra cost.

You will have to remove the heater wires, glass and the plastic housing plate as I mentioned in my last post. As you mentioned, all of the old glass must be removed and scrape any residual cement off of the plastic housing(backing plate) in order to assure proper bond to the plastic. Then it is as simple as applying cement according to the mounting instructions. At that point reassemble the backing plate to the power pack as noted in the attached instructions. I do not believe that this will be a very difficult job; however, it will take some extra time to clean and prep the backing plate.