How do you remove the door mirror?

If this helps anyone else doing a driver mirror replacement for their first time, there are 3 additional door panel clips (besides the ones in the 2018 door panel removal procedure) on the 2021 Honda Clarity front driver's door panel that seem to release last (See arrows on the pictures to show where they are).

The top 2 clips can be reached from the top and I used my nylon pry tool to release them. But the bottom one I just pulled out before I figured it out. I just thought I had to pry a little harder. Of course, now there is a slight gap between the handle and door panel where I used my nylon prying tool. I would think you can unclip it from looking up from the bottom of the door.

And, of course, I broke one of the $1.75 plastic clips as well when it fell off the door panel while I was trying to figure it out and I didn't notice it and stepped on it by accident. And don't get me started on those very thin rubber washers on all of the clips that rolled everywhere.

I replaced both the driver's mirror assembly and the skull cap as a unit because I couldn't get the skull cap off the old mirror without breaking it slightly with my nylon pry tools. A couple of hours, a few hundred dollars, and it was done. I used a "Mr. Clean Magic Eraser" and water to clean the other paint off my paint.

 

I reviewed the instructions again for the 2018 Clarity Front Door Panel Removal and now see the 3 clips labeled as "C" on page 2 on the door panel. But they look more like "D" in the illustration of the clip at the top. It looks like they switched "C" and "D" for the clips in the instructions. Everything went quickly and smoothly except for those 3 clips.

 

I tackled this repair today. There was an unfortunately placed trashcan that the mirror smacked and got knocked apart a couple weeks ago. Fortunately it snapped back together and I was able to order a the parts I needed from hondapartsnow for about $110. (as an aside looking at their prices - the most expensive part of the entire passenger side mirror is the dang camera at around $350...that's bananas).

Because I was only repairing the lower case of the mirror, and the body colored top portion - I didn't need to remove the door panel, though I did preemptively just in case I needed to pull the whole mirror.

Steps of disassembly:
- remove mirror glass and disconnect heater wires
- remove top cap
- unplug and remove side watch camera (one screw, and two clips.
- remove mirror motor assembly (3 screws)
- unplug mirror motor (used a small flathead screwdriver)
- depin mirror motor plug (smal pick to push back clip, slide directly out -- it does not pull up, it slides out - see mirror_motor_plug and weird_mirror_motor-pin)
- depin camera plug (this is the big plug that Bob had to fight earlier in this post). [1]
- use needle nose pliers to set into the notches in the spring retention washer and turn it until the flat spots align with the flat spots in the post (assuming your post didn't break anyhow). The spring is under a good amount of tension so be careful.
- remove the washer and spring and lift the mirror housing off of the post. (I found wrapping all of the wires up, 12 in total [6 for the camera, 4 for the mirror motor, and 2 for the mirror heater], with electrical tape made dealing with moving them through the spring and washer and such much less painful).
- continue disassembly to swap over whatever you need to your new parts and finally:
- reverse order to reassemble.

** Gotcha: after you've finished your repair, like any reasonable handyman you'll want to make sure it works before completing reassembly. The mirror and window do not work if the passenger door window and lock switch are not connected.

It wasn't terrible and was a fun handy way to spend a few hours. Even if you're not repairing your existing mirror and are replacing the whole shebang, you'll need to depin the camera connector to get the wires out of the mirror. (It's a pretty crummy design honestly) -- addendum: actually looking at the pdfs shared earlier, it looks like there is another clip inside the door that you could unplug instead if you're replacing the whole mirror. The pain I went through may just be limited to the frugal who are repairing instead of replacing ^_^

1. This video helped me a ton getting started

Basically what you're going to do is use a small pick (I used my 45 degree pick) to pull up the white retainer thing from around the male side connector's pins (see image whitespacer_removed and removedspacer to see what you're looking for). One half can be unclipped by pushing the pin towards the middle of the plug. The other half you have to slide a straight pin or small flathead to the *side* of the pin (see dumbsideclip_pins for the side clip spot). Most plugs I've depinned have the clips on the top or bottom, these are on the side...don't ask me how long it took to sort that out. Once they're unhooked you can carefully slide them out of the back of the plug.

 

I have a very similar dilemma though slightly different issue. I hit a construction cone about a year ago that destroyed my glass mirror and a couple issues including the housing for the camera and broke the mirror cover (typically colored same color as the car)

after getting the cover and the glass mirror replaced, cosmetic is the only issue and the camera isn’t housed in place so last week I decided to buy the rest of the parts I need.. the housing and the camera holder black plate on the bottom.
After removing the housing, I’m now baffled with an issue where I cannot install the bottom black plate that houses the camera at all.

Any ideas how I can get that part on?

 

You have to disassemble the entire mirror, including the retention spring that is on the post where the mirror pivots from to replace the bottom part of the housing. There is no other way to get that part on as it is in effect the second item in the stack of parts that all ride on that post. The round hold next to your hand in the second image that is opposite the opening where the camera mounting plate snaps in is what you'd be sliding down the post once everything is disassembled.

 

I am trying to replace driver side mirror. I see mirror assembly and cap is sold separately. How is cap installed? Is it snapped or do we need to remove glass first?

 

That's a good question. For putting it back on, it's just a few snaps and you can push it right into place without much trouble.

However, I wonder if anyone knows how to remove it. I had a dickens of a time getting mine apart when I was replacing the mirror assembly. (As we all know, the cover is sold separately, so I wanted to move my old cover to my new mirror.) The only way I finally got it off was to take out the mirror and gears stuff, and then I could get at the retaining clips from inside. The instructions just say to remove the clips and hooks, but it doesn't give any detail about how to get to them. I hope I never have to do this again, but is there a simpler way?

 

Thanks to a lot of help from posters in this forum, in this thread and others, I succeeded in replacing my driver side mirror. I replaced the entire assembly, which involves taking off the driver side inside door panel. One thing that I wasn't expecting is that there was a foam sheet of sorts with plastic backing. It was fixed to the door with some kind of gray goop that still soft (on my 1998 Clarity) and pretty messy when touched. I cut and removed a sizable chunk of that foam sheet to be able to get to the attachment points for the mirror.

The instructions just show the 3 screws for the mirror mount and tells you remove the nuts. I didn't realize until later that there are well-placed holes where you can get to the nuts with a socket wrench. If I had know that, I could have merely punched a few small holes in the foam sheet. The nuts want a 10mm socket, and you'll need an extension of six inches or so to reach them. And, of course, you have a good chance of dropping one or two of them into the dark recesses of the door, so if you can find a 10mm socket with some kind of magnetic action, that would be useful.

You can see 2 of the three holes in the attached photo (the 3rd smaller hole is for something else, not one of the nuts). Sorry for the poor photo.

 

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Thanks for the hard-won extra info--hope I never have to replace my mirror.

 

Here's an inside view of the back of the mirror. The three square holes are where U-shaped clips go in. The clips are molded as part of the back cover. For assembly, they slide right into place when you push the back cover on. For disassembly, I don't see a way to release those clips except from the front side after removing the mirror. There are also two small friction-fit clips, one on each side, but they are tiny and would yield to prying with a panel tool. It's the 3 U-shaped clips that are really doing the work of holding the back cover.

 

Uh, yeah, early prototype I meant 2018.