Garage Sale score!

[73k5blazer]

I don't stop at many garage sales, but my wife wanted to "see if they had something", so we stopped.
I see a Gentex mirror, and it's the best one they make (available to the aftermarket anyhow).
Auto-dimming, compass, temp, homelink, maplights.
They have tire pressure monitoring ones as well, but the sensor system is quite involved so they don't sell those to the aftermarket. Gentex is the OEM supplier to GM (and probably other). Same mirror you would find in many new GM cars & trucks. Looking around, cheapest I could find this mirror is $330. Garage sale price, $100. I was going to buy one of these too, but just the auto-dimming one which you can find for $70, I didn't want to spend $300+ on a mirror.
Full wire harness and temp probe included!

This is the mirror here, the GENK60 model:
http://www.aaaremotes.com/hocoaumiwima.html

 

[stizkidz]

I never understood the whole fascination with high tech mirrors... I understand that this one has all kinds of features and whatnot; but its still just a mirror.

 

[DavidB]

I had a dodge that had temp and direction. The temp was interesting and the compass was handy.

 

[73k5blazer]

I like the auto-dimming. The mirror is really like an LCD display that darkens when light hits from the back (and of course the light sensor in the front must be reading dark as well). It's gradual too, not just light or dark, the darkness is apporpiate to the light hitting from the back. Outside temp is nice to know, hunting trips, fishing trips..map lights (dome lights) are nice espcially for the '73 where light from above in front is hard to come by.
It's definitly a preference thing,nothing is really nessesary your right, it's just a mirror. I've gottom pretty anal on this rebuilt though,im going on 8 years, every nut & bolt,electical terminal, has been replaced new with newer technology. The mirror is just one of those things I guess........
It will give the newish OEM feel to the vehicle though.
Now, how to make the fiberglass body fell OEM'ish...hmmmmmm

 

[Drey]

Nice score. I love having the temp and compass in my S10 Blazer, I was thinkin about getting something like that in my K10 when its done.

 

[73k5blazer]

Here's a pic, of course there's I still need a windshield in there!:

It was quite a project fishing the wire harness through that 1973 K5 header. Took about 8 tries before I finally got it all the way through. I had to make a few modifications to the supplied Universal gentex harness though, they had a big flat connector about 1' from the mirror itself, might fit nice under a new suburbans headliner, but no way was that going to even fit in the 1973 K5 header, let alone getting it in there. Since the mirror has a plug disconnect on it, I saw no need for that big flat disconnect a foot from the mirror disconnect, so I elminated the connector all together and soldered all those wires together.
Works perfect, wired in to the dome lights, which is nice on the 73, where overhead light is hard to come by in the center. Garage door opener works good, compass needs calibration (drive in circles it says), and now I can see why I'm sweating so much out in the garage.