Before cutting up the truck or doing anything crazy, I just wanted to make sure everything was gonna work. So I laid the mirror in the floor of the truck, plugged the new module into the truck, and the mirror into the module and started pushing buttons.
Tap to view!
photos.app.goo.gl
Simple as could be, main mirror and convex mirror both worked perfectly, power fold did its thing, yeehaw! Hmm, wonder why the surround view camera isn't working, icon isn't even illuminated on the bigscreen...Oh, because its not plugged in, dumbass!
Plug it in, look at the screen, still not working, just a black shadow at the drivers door. Harumpf. Oh well, maybe that was the part about AlfaOBD, I'll worry about it later. After sleeping on it, and worrying I bought a mirror with a defective camera, the next morning I realized I had the door open, and thats what it always does when the door is open.

Close the door, and boom it works like a champ!
In summary, the following functions work perfectly by simply swapping the mirror module (no additional programming or workarounds needed):
Main mirror adjust
Convex mirror adjust
Power Fold
Surround View camera
Puddle light
Turn signal (I haven't actually verified this one yet, but I'm just assuming it does since the more complex stuff does)
What doesn't work:
Power telescope
Rear facing spotlight
There are workarounds for these mentioned earlier in this thread, but they are not at all important to me, so I'm not worried about them for now.
So, what did I do different? I decided to modify the mirror instead of the door.
There is no good and graceful way to do this. But the same could probably be said of cutting the door panel too. I figure worst case scenario, I'm out a $600 mirror, but I could probably scavenge parts and get some of that money back.
I started with the sawzall (jigsaw actually, but either device will rapidly punch the mirror just fine) to try to get some big chunks off:
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It was slow and bouncy, and just a pain in the butt, and kept wearing through my protective tape (I did ballast the protection with cardboard after the first wearthrough).
Once I realized that wasn't gonna cut it (harharhar), I did something even more primitive...I started drilling holes and then walking the drill hole to hole using the side cutting action of the flutes:
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I'd like to take a moment and mention that I have a mill and lathe, and a nice vertical and horizontal bandsaw, and they are basically useless in this scenario, because there is no good way to hold the mirror assembly. I'd love to clamp it down on the mill and hog out some aluminum, but it just isn't reasonably possible. I also have a plasma cutter, but the collateral damage to the wiring and plastic bits would be catastrophic. So primitive garage tools it is!
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Once I got enough chunks of aluminum out of the way, I went after it with a flapdisc on the grinder, and it cut very easily and ended up looking halfway decent. With a little more deburring and a coat of black paint, this wouldn't look half bad:
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The hardest part about grinding was making sure you didn't hit anything else, while trying to hold the mirror still with your other hand (third hand, because safety first, no one uses a grinder with just one hand!).
Once I had enough clearance, I mounted it up and it went on without issue. Plugged it all in, and good to go. As I stated earlier, the surround view cam works, however the images aren't perfectly aligned.
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I have no recollection of how good or bad it was before, but the newer mirrors do have the camera angled a little more outward, so I expected it to be a little off. Since I've only done drivers side, it'll be interesting to see if it changes any once the other is in place.
I'm sure someone is thinking "oh man, with only 3 bolts instead of 5, and all that webbing removed, the mirror is going to explode and kill a bus full of nuns!" and what not. I'm sure if you try hard enough, you're right! Reality is the new mirror is a few pounds heavier, but the old mirror stuck out further and had a larger aero profile. I'm no expert on mirror mounting mechanics and the relevant static and dynamic forces, but I am a mechanical engineer, and I'm confident my 90lb son could do a pull up on the arm of this mirror. It is rock solid and will have no problem handling any reasonable forces that are thrown at it, just like the old mirror with only 3 bolts. Also, a critcal component to the strength is the formation of the bends and contours in the door that the mirror mounts to. By cutting all the sheet metal below the mirror, you are weakening the mount for your bottom bolts, which counter compression due to gravity, and fore and aft forces due to wind/accel/decel. Yes, there are more bolts, but that very top bolt is probably doing 90% of the work of holding the old mirror up, and 70-80% of the work holding the new mirror up. The additional surface area of the new mirror can comfortably transfer some of that load onto the door sheet metal, instead of having the 2 lower bolts float in space and possibly even overcompress and stress the bracket if they are not tightening against a flat surface. Also, I have zero concern for water leaks since the integrity of the sheet metal has been preserved, and nothing has been cut, so rust won't be an issue.
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