Installing T180 Celica Mirrors on an SW20 MR2, The Easy Way
There were a few old forum posts about installing Celica side mirrors on an MR2, but most of that has been lost to time. (See- The Great Photobucket Collapse of 2019)
With that, it has sort of become a dead modification, but there is now a pretty simple route to take. They don’t directly swap over, but what needs to be done is fairly straightforward.
Note: credit to Aric (AKA Shamus375PA on MR2OC) for this idea. He did this around the same time I was gathering parts but beat me to the punch. I probably would have put this off for longer if not for his post.
Step 1: Acquire the Mirrors
There are at least two different side mirrors available on the T180 Celica (1989-1993). One fixed, and one foldable. I have not been able to figure out what specification differentiates the two, it could be a trim level. Regardless, this works with either. Use your judgement as to which you prefer.
These are available in both powered and non-powered variants. In this guide I will be using the manual mirrors for my own car, but there are a few small steps to take if you want the powered function. I sourced mine from two different cars. There are not a ton of these in junkyards.
As for the brackets, I bought the APR Mirror Mounts from Wilhelm Raceworks.
Step 2: Prepping the Mirror
If your mirrors come with the metal brackets from the donor car, remove them now. There are up to two pieces here, the larger bracket bolts to the smaller with three small screws, and the smaller bracket bolts to the mirror with three smaller screws, which are hidden under the foam material. If you have this, keep these screws.
There is a small piece of support material bridging the two planes on the bottom of the mirror. Remove this piece, I used a dremel with a cutoff disc, you could use a file, or excercise some finesse with an angle grinder. This allows the mirror to more cleanly “nest” into the Bracket from Wilhelm.
Step 3: Drilling Holes
This part takes the most time. I held the mirror against the bracket, aligned the bottom of the mirror to the bottom of the bracket, then marked where I would drill the first hole. I installed the screw in that hole, carefully marked the 2nd hole, and repeat for the third. I did that in the following order, and ended with this result:
If your mirrors did not come with the screws, these are unfortunately NOT the same screws present on the SW20. There will be a note at the end regarding this.
Note: Screw “#3” ends up with very little thread engagement, more on that later.
Step 4: Trimming the Mirrors
In the above image, you can see that the mirror hangs over a little past the bracket. To make it cleaner, I also trimmed this off with a dremel. I followed this with a sanding block to round the edge off.
This is not actually necessary.
Step 5: Trimming the Car
Due to the exact locations of the screws, you have to remove some material from the rubber seal portion of the door. Bolt the bracket alone to the door, mark the holes you just drilled, and remove the rubber behind those locations. I used a drill bit to mark the spots and a box cutter to remove the rubber. I also used a drill to remove some of the metal behind the seal.
Step 6: Assembly
Due to the nature of the direction of the screws, it is not actually possible to assemble this the way Toyota or Alex Wilhelm expects. If you install the bracket to the car, you do not have access to the screws going to the mirror. If you install the bracket to the mirror, you have no way to hold the screws in place to tighten the bracket down. The easiest way around this is to use the screws as studs.
The nuts that Alex includes with the mirror brackets are too thick for this. The nuts will hit the OEM bracket before the bracket touches the car. I opted for some hardware store stainless serrated flange nuts. This needs to be tight in order to prevent the bolt from slipping if you need to remove these in the future. I even threw some red loctite on the joint. This doesn’t ever need to come apart, so make it permanent. Install this for the final time against the mirror, then bolt the bracket to the car using your newly created studs. You don’t want to use a nylock nut in this case, since the “stud” is relying on surface friction to stay in place. Installation or removal with a nylock will put a lot of rotational load on the stud. I opted for whiz nuts, though this would be another suitable application for serrated nuts.
Step 7 (optional): Paint your mirrors
Paint your mirrors to match your car. That’s all.
Note on Screws:
If you are unable to source screws, a simple answer would be to use a thread repair kit to use fine thread M5 bolts. This also becomes important for screw #3, which ends up with very little thread engagement. I used a M5x0.8 helicoil kit on the uppermost screw hole. This allows any length M5x0.8 screw to be used, and for full thread engagement to be achieved. All screw holes have enough surrounding material for this type of thread insert, if desired.
Note on Power Function:
The Celica and MR2 use the same power mirror connector and pinout, but the wiring is too short. If you would like to keep this function, extend the wires from your Celica mirror enough to plug in to the MR2 door harness. You could extend the door harness alternatively but this will get in the way of the door card attaching.
