F250 Paddle to towing mirror installation
 

I just scored a new pair of heated/turn signal towing mirrors for $80 off of Craig's list :-dancing1 from a small auto repair shop that doing some year end cleaning and wanted them gone fast. He claims they were promo items from his supplier but had no use for them as he was a CAR guy. How could I pass up a deal like that? Anyway, the brand on the box was 'Fortress' and the model #FDS09410LL searched out to be an item sold individually at Auto Zone for $220 under the brand name of 'PILOT'. They are well constructed and I hope the lenses are decent and don't vibrate, I've had enough of that with my slide over towing extension mirrors.

After reading the umpteen posts in regards to towing mirrors I am still foggy on a few items and being the weather forecast is for multiple days of heavy rain with no room in my garage to work, I wanted to relieve my curiosity (doubts) before I dig in. The mirrors did not include any wiring schematics so I really hope this is a plug and play (and grin) solution. Sorry, I could not :-RTFM

I have an 03 v10 F250 with electric paddle mirrors that are not heated and the posts seem to confirm I should have the rectangular connector that is prewired to accommodate the heating and turn signal option. How the heck does the heater activate if there is no switch like the Excursions have? Is the mirror always hot? It the heater function connected to work whenever the windshield defroster is on? I don't get it. I assume the heater is controlled by the accessory switch so that is the fail safe and I'm sure I can disable the mirror heat feature by simply not connecting that wire. Any insight is appreciated.

I would pop off a door panel to see what I have, then it will give you a better idea of what you will need to do. I really don't think you will have wiring for heat. Other's have wired the heat to an upfitter switch or a toggle switch. You might not even have any wiring for the blinkers. Other's have spliced the blinkers right into their existing blinker wires. Shouldn't be that hard one way or the other. The mirror doesn't need to be mounted to work, so you could even pop off the door panel, unhook the wiring harness and see if it will plug into the new mirror. If it plugs right in, you can see what works and what doesn't. Good luck.

Really hope to be seeing that at least the turn signal wiring present. It seems there are differing opinions on what year the wiring harness included more than three wires. The marker light seems easy enough to wire up and I don't really care if the heater feature works or not. I am not familiar with the term 'upfitter' switch. Is that like a timed power switch like a cars rear window defogger? Still raining too much to play around but I'm thinking about getting out my easy up canopy to cure that issue.

My guess is that you only have three wires. But who knows, you might get a surprise when you pop off the door panel. Here is a thread with a pic of upfitter switches. I don't know if the 03's had them or not.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/9...-switches.html

Nice switches, wish I had'em. I'll go back to the drawing board. BTW, I did get the panel off and do have the rectangular plug with only 3 wires.

I can't seem to find a wiring schematic in the FTE site for any truck. The only specs I find are vehicle specs but nothing to do with wiring diagrams. Do I need to purchase a Chilton or Clymer for this or is there a link I am not finding? http://images.ford-trucks.com/forums...s2/mad0228.gif

I feel like I'm talking to myself but I'll continue anyway; I thought this was a forum and not a rant but by the amount of views on my post and all the related posts I'd say there are some unanswered curiosities.

Installing the new mirrors was all too easy, total of 45 minutes to install both. My son held them in place and they bolted right up; his help was needed primarily to compress the padding between the doorframe and the mirror to allow the nut reach the threads. I reused the original nuts from the paddles as they have a larger collar surface.

They do look great and are so much more functional. I towed my toy hauler over the weekend and was amazed at the increased rear viewing angle and I could actually see my entire trailer and all the vehicles around and behind me. No more need to second guess myself and confirm with the wife for lane changes...wee-haa!

My 03 does have the rectangular connector with only 3 wires as BRD7666 suspected. I did wire up the door connectors to the steering column area with 4 wire 16 guage trailer wire that I found at Walmart for about $11.00 for 25 ft. This multi-colored wire is had a white ground, two wires that marked as left and right turn signal, and another common wire. I used a plastic 14" x 1/4" tie wrap to thread a single wire through the rubber sleeve between the door and the door column to pull through the 4 pair wires. A coat hanger was mentioned in another thread but it's too rigid and why risk piercing an existing wire and the tie wrap is flexible enough to be manipulated inside the sleeve and is stiff enough to fish through it.

It went pretty easy on the passenger side by dropping the thin insulation-like panel located below the glove box. Reach around and you'll find the tie wrap you are threading through from the door area. There is plenty of room to fish the wired through the dash to the drivers side area.
The drivers door was a shorter run but a bit more difficult and small hands are a bonus to reach the wire. I found it helpful to pull the rubber sleeve grommet away from the door post and shine a flash light through the hole. This light can be seen below the dash around the emergency brake area after you remove the both fuse panel covers. Simply grab the wire that was taped on to the end of the tie wrap and use it as a fish wire to pull the 4 pair through.

Okay, now that I am this far I need the help to identify the correct wires for the turn signal and marker lights. I did subscribe to ALLDATAdiy.com and found the wiring diagrams to be helpful but they lack descriptions of where the connections actually reside. Also, being the 2003 was not wired for these mirrors the diagrams are useless as they do not forecast the wiring of these future feature items.

If anyone can help by posting pictures or descriptive locations of these turn signal and marker lights connection areas I really appreciate it. I am so close to being done; I know other will benefit greatly with your help. Thanks and good luck with yours.

Sorry, I can't add anything to help you out. But Thanks for posting, I've been considering the same swap. Very informative, Thanks again.

Another idea would be to run the wiring through the fire wall, and splice right into the blinker wires themselves up by the blinker/headlight assembly. Just a thought, I know it's a mess under the dash. Good luck.

I used a kids bicycle brake cable housing instead of a coat hanger, and it worked extremely well. Would recommend to anyone doing this mod for running wires under the dash and through the A-pillar.
Good Luck,
Garry in Kodiak, AK

i just did this on my 03 and i had the rectangular plug, it was extremely easy took less than an hour for both sides

I surely wish mine was prewired with all 7 wires, darn early model version. I spent a few hours tearing the dash apart searching for the 'multifunction switch 202' so I could splice the turn signal there but I simply could not find it. I found a relay under the dash and another under the hood near the firewall but don't feel they are appropriate areas to splice into.

I did find a group of 4 spare wires that that run through the dash with a large wiring harness. These leads were specifically pulled outside of the harness and are about 6" long (black, white, blue & green). Following the advice from others, I am thinking of splicing the turn signal wires to two of them and extending the wires to the front turn signal and splicing them there. This keeps from the fun of penetrating the firewall to run my own wires.

I reckon I'll splice the marker lights to the brown wires at the main light switch. I did find two brown leads that function the same, can I splice both leads to one of them or go left and right respectively?

Lastly, the heater wires; I don't like the idea of having the heaters active at all time. I surely don't need the heaters on when I'm driving in the 110 degree desert. I am considering splicing the heaters to the fog light lead on the main light switch. :-wink. This way I can control the heater to be active only when I turn on the fog lights which is usually when it's raining, cooler temps are present, or it's dark out. I also won't need to install a new switch for it. I'm just not sure if there would be a negative amp draw impact to the fog lamps. Being the rainy weather is here for another few days I thought I put this out there for feedback.

I have a 2003 and it had paddel mirrors and i put tow mirrows on it with that heat and marker and turn. but i dont know what wires to splice them in to. any help would be appericated.

The mirrors are heated all the time as you know. The down side to having them hot all the time is they tend to water spot really bad.

i just recently purchased the tow mirrors for my 03 f250 7.3l and the old mirrors have a rectangle plug but the new mirrors came with a circle plug? i want to snip the connectors and switch them but the wire colors are different and im not sure what color to put where???

I just installed tow mirrors in place of my paddle mirrors with the same issue. New mirrors round plug 3 wires green purple yellow, both mirrors. Old mirrors rectangular plug 3 wires. Drivers side red blue black, passenger side green purple black. On the drivers side I hooked green to red, purple to blue, yellow to black. On the passenger side I hooked purple to purple, green to green and yellow to black. The action of the mirror corresponds to what I am doing at the switch so I assume it is correct. Good luck.