My All-Trac's rear-view mirror wouldn't flip with that tab on the bottom, which would irritate me at night (even though my windows are tinted pretty darkly).  So rather than just replace the mirror with another Corolla mirror, I decided to go another route.

I used to own two Lebaron convertibles, a 92 and a 94, at two different times of course.  If there was one thing I liked about those LeBarons, it was the rear-view mirror with maplights on the bottom edge (because you can't really have a dome light in a ragtop convertible, lol).  They would both come on like a dome light if the doors were opened, and had separate switches for each light when the doors were closed.

Anyways I went to the junkyard a few months ago and picked up a r-v mirror from a LeBaron.  It was just a matter of fabricating a custom bracket and mounting the mirror to it, then figuring out how to wire it up.  I had this bracket welded up at my job, then took it home to round off the corners and edges, then brought it back to my job to have it powder coated.



Another view of the bottom -- clickable link



A not-very-good-quality pic of the mirror test mounted in place, before it was painted -- clickable link




^ Hand-cut with a Dremel!



Another view of the "top" side which contacts the roof -- clickable link



I'm either going to paint that acorn nut ($2!!) or take it back and just cover the bolt threads with a rubbery end cap.  The acorn nut interferes with the mirror a little bit, being so close, and I didn't want to cut that bolt and ruin the threads.  I don't know.  I need something there to keep the bolt from cutting into my sun visors when I put them up.  Maybe I'll just cut the damn bolt, lol, and paint the end of it black.

The only real disadvantage of the LeBaron mirror is that it's a little narrower in the middle of the mirror (when looking into it) compared to the Corolla mirror.  But it's not that big of a deal.  The LeBaron mirror is actually a little wider.  I'll get out the calipers and measure it sometime...

My next part of this project is to wire it up.  I tried to get as much of the wiring as possible from the junkyard car, so I pulled away most of the windshield molding in order to get a good length.  I'm thinking about tapping into the dome light wiring somehow, so that these maplights come on when the doors are opened, though I don't know if I really want them to "always" be on like that (I usually keep my dome light always off).

Any suggestions for how to remove that headliner would be greatly appreciated... I haven't attempted it yet, but at least now I have the room in my own garage to put all the pieces!

If you have a fairly good grinding wheel, you can cut that bolt very slowly and gently with a hacksaw to the length you want, remove the mirror and grind the bolt so that the grinder moves in the same direction as the thread would, its called "chasing the burr" For example, like you are "threading the bolt onto the grinder wheel" is how my machine shop boss taught me. Obviously it requires a steady hand, but its very possible!

Then you will have it exactly the length you need and with working threads.

Also: GREAT JOB, map lights would be awesome! =D

Thanks!  Yeah, I think some models of our wagons have map lights on the roof between the sun visors, but mine doesn't!  And good luck to me to find an A-T in a junkyard, so this seemed like the best option.  I'd also like to replace the bulbs with LEDs, if I can find out what type of LED I would need.

The more I think about it, the more I just want to cut the bolt and paint the end of it.  I just don't want to cut too much since it only threads into the mirror a little bit.

I have small files, I suppose I could just clean up the burrs from cutting with those.  I need to get a table vise for my garage work bench...

My A-T does come with a map light, but this is an even better idea.  This I need to look into.

If you decide to go to a junkyard to fish out a r-v mirror with map lights, make sure the switches work.  I brought along one of those battery booster/jumpers (smaller, lighter than a battery) to give me a 12v supply to make sure this mirror worked.

I ended up finding a small plastic/rubbery screw cover, and slipped that over the bolt.  I'll just keep the stupid $2 acorn nut around, since I do have one other bolt that it fits.  Still need to wire this up... when I do I'll take notes and come back to this topic.

Also I'm sure there are other kinds of cars with r-v mirrors with map lights, but I don't know what ones.  Maybe one with a slightly larger mirror would be better than the LeBaron mirror.  I think it's the only thing I don't like about it, it's just slightly shorter at the middle than the Corolla one.  Not a big deal though.

Have you got a pic of it installed?

I can take one in the daytime... I recently [finally] painted the heads of the bolts since they were just steel colored, and I wanted them black to match.  Still haven't wired them up, but it's something I'm hoping to do by year's end.  I am not looking forward to the process of removing the headliner!

Oh, I finally got some LEDs for those maplights, as well as for the dome & cargo lights.  Now I just need to order some new covers, since my dome cover recently crackled due to age, and I never had a rear cover.  I know the dealers still carry them as I've looked it up recently.

Here's the site I ordered from:
http://www.superbrightleds.com

Cross reference chart of OEM bulb types and their LED counterparts:
http://www.superbrightleds.com.....sp=%2Fbulb_cross.htm

These are the ones I chose, and seem to work well enough:

LeBaron maplight LEDs:
LED Festoon Bulbs -- the tab that says 4410-x9

Dome & cargo LEDs:
LED Festoon Bulbs -- the tab that says 3022-xx (there are 4 and 9 LED bulbs)
High Power LED Festoon Bulbs -- the tab that says 3022-xHP4

I ordered a 3022-4 UV blacklight LED bulb for the hell of it... it's pretty awesome!  The only problem I've encountered so far is the recommended bulb for my del Sol's dome is definitely not the right fitment.  The 3022 LED bulbs are too big to properly fit into those sockets, so my search continues.

There's a lot of other cool stuff on their site, instrument bulbs, flashlights, etc.  I particularly like the "Striker Magnetic Mine" light.

Are they actually quite bright? I'd really like it if the overhead light was about 3x brighter so I could actually see something! =D

Yes... especially the high-powered ones!  (3022-xHP4)  It's a bit pricier, but definitely lives up to the name.  I haven't tried any with the covers on, though, but I'm sure they're still bright.  The fuse type LED I bought to try in my del Sol's maplight is still pretty bright.

I'm pretty sure you could just tap into the power for the dome light, somewhere between the switch and the light (in order to get the "always off" option). The only downside is potentially not getting full brightness out of either light, but if the bulbs you're using are much brighter than the standard ones, you may be good to go. Perhaps this week sometime I'll see about cracking open the dome light and figuring out where you could tap it.

With LED lights the current draw is way lower so I bet you'd be ok!

I would definitely tap into the factory wires if possible! There might even be wires for sunroof power run up there, if so you're laughing because thats a 30A connection... you could run a small drill off that.

Well, it took me about 1 year since I pulled the LeBaron convertible's mirror with map lights from a junkyard... but I've finally wired it up!  I had some trial & error to get through, since electrical work is not my forte.  The most trouble I had was where to stick each of the three wires coming out of the LeBaron mirror's map light connector (all black wires, with a red, white, or yellow stripe).

I've got it to where it works like I want it to --  if the dome light is switched to DOOR, the map lights also turn on when a door is opened, giving me more light inside the wagon (especially since I went with LEDs -- festoon bulbs, type 4410 for the LeBaron mirror).  Same thing for when I switch the dome ON or OFF, the map lights are on or off respectively.  The best thing is, no matter if the switch is on the DOOR or OFF position (if it's ON then the map lights come on), when I'm in the wagon, doors are closed, I can switch either of the two map lights on or off by their switches   They pretty much work just like they did in my old LeBaron convertibles, except I can turn them off when the dome switch is also OFF while a door is open.  (In the LeBaron, the map lights *were* the dome light, and there was no option to switch them off when working on the car with a door open!)

Anyways here are the pics!  Let me know if they don't show up... I'm using Picasa instead of Photobucket because Photobucket is being a %*@#.

I had to remove the headliner in order to run the wires from the mirror to the dome light.  Not a task for the faint of heart... I'd recommend doing this with a helper, but I managed to get the headliner out by myself.





I also had to cut out a small |_| shape in the headliner to run the wiring.  I made the cut big enough for the wiring harness connector to slip through...





I drilled out one of the "blank" holes so I could feed the three wires through the dome light fixture.  I had to ream out the inside of that ring connector in order to fit the dome fixture screw through it.









I'll try to get more pics in the daylight, now that it's 99% done (I need a new dome light cover, mine is disintegrating).  That's also an LED in the dome light seen in the above pic.

Took me a while, but here's the mirror in place inside the wagon:

How much effort does it take to remove the roof lining & put it back in again?