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MG MGF Technical - Cold door mirrors

A very cold day yesterday and the door mirrors were foggy. Both were quite cold. Apparently the mirrors heating element was off. Do you people know a possible cause for this. Blown fuse maybe?
Thanks. Mike
JM Vega-P.

Mike,

The 10 amp fuse in the passenger compartment fusebox also feeds the window lift relay.

http://www.mgfcar.de/schedules/sb23.jpg

If your windows don't work, then it's probably the fuse (number 18 I think).

Sam
Sam Murray

Hi Mike.
Dont know what type the heater element is on the "F",but on some makes where a PTC resistor element is being used as heater it is not uncommon for the glued element to come loose.
Probably Dieter has pictures of an opend up mirror on his site...(Still remembering what you did to your mirrors some years ago Dieter ! ;O))) BR, Carl.
Carl

>...(Still remembering what you did to your mirrors some years ago Dieter ! ;O))) BR, Carl.

Errr ;), the gap to reaching the garage there backwards was nearly narrow.
http://www.mgfcar.de/broken_mirror/cp_2183.jpg
Cost me one mirror at the green MGF and later the still not repaired big dent at the right rear wing at my lovely silver MGF.

Anyway, we have two types of mirror heaters.
I think Michael will have the early *thick*-type.
http://www.mgfcar.de/broken_mirror/cp_2206.jpg

The later is the same resistance (watt'age) but very thin and very good adhered to the glass.
http://www.mgfcar.de/mirror/dk_Dcp_0892.jpg
I know, the glass will break if you try to pull it off ;)

Michael,
I assume the heater element just came off from the glass due to poor adhesive.
You can measure the resistance easy yourself after removing the door panel. There is a two position connector with blue coloured wires just below the mirror cheater.
If low resistance, than it's OK and the adhesive failed.
A repair is possible if you find an adhesive that matches. The mirror needs to be dismatled. (driving against a wall to do this is not recommended) ;)

If you can't measure anything then it's burned or the spade connector is broken/corroded from the part.
No option to repair, but replace the whole glass including the black plastic frame.

Dismateling the mirror can be done. Start at the _hinge_ by hand and use a thin spade to undo the black frame from the mirror body.

http://www.mgfcar.de/mirror
Some images. I recall Stefan Gibney had better ?

HTH
Dieter
Dieter

Windows do work fine. So I guess Iīll have to follow Dieterīs advise and go for some dismantling. However I find somewhat odd that not just one but both mirrors heaters are gone at the very same time. Many thanks. Mike
JM Vega-P.

Mirrors dismantled. Difficult task but succesfully done. As Dieter pointed out the "early" heater elements were there. however everything seems to be fine inside but the heating devices do not work. Mike
JM Vega-P.

When you have the mirror apart,measure to a good ground that there is 12Volt at one end and 0Volt at the ground end of the heater element. If 12Volt at both connectors = suspect faulty ground connection.
If no voltage detected = probably broken wire in the wireloom to the door if the windows works OK and fuse is not broken. The heater element itself should be in the region of 10-20 Ohm if measured with an Ohm-meter and no cables attached.
/ Carl.
Carl

This thread was discussed between 16/08/2005 and 19/08/2005

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