Added temperature / compass mirror to the Caprice Wagon

I've always liked the temperature / compass feature on my interior rear view mirror on my Yukon XL, in the little square. I read Ray's (red and black) posting that he added the auto-dimming mirror to his daily driver.  That's for me, someday, I'll get around to it.

The Mrs. has a Caddy CTS that displays the temperature in the info panel.  You can toggle a bunch of things such as MPG, Instant MPG, Oil life, transmission fluid life etc.  I'm always toggling between MPG and temp. So........I'm poking around on ebay I spot an interior mirror, that looked identical to the CTS' but had the square for compass and direction. It also had the necessary 16 pin plug. For $40 I decided to roll the dice. I few days later it arrives, and doing GOOGLE research, I realize all I have to do is run two wires to a temperature sender which was included.

It worked perfectly, now no more toggling between MPG and mileage.

Now, it was so easy, on to the Caprice wagon, which has no outside temperature reading.  Back to ebay, I spot a rear view mirror, just like the Yukon XL.  Make sure it has the 7 pin plug.  The 16 pin plug can be used but the 7 pin makes it easier.  Hit the buy it now button.  The Caprice wagon's mirror has two map lights, which in all honesty are useless and never used.   The new mirror does not have those, but the Caprice wagon has an overhead light which I converted to LED's that RMW's do not.  There is more than enough light without those rinky dinky map lights.

Same thing, run two wires to the temperature sensor to the plug.  

On the 7 pin plug, pins 1 (power) pink & 2 (ground) black switched by the ignition.  Pins 6 & 7 are for the sensor.

Done, works perfect.  





Tom

Yep! Adding an auto-dimming mirror to that little car was the best mod. Need one for the wagon next. Been driving it around for 2 days with a plain mirror with no lights or anything and it sucks. I'm spoiled.

Which mirror did you get? On the back it should say GNTX-XXX. I should get one with the temp sensor. I like that feature.

RedandBlack wrote:

Which mirror did you get? On the back it should say GNTX-XXX. I should get one with the temp sensor. I like that feature.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/GM-GMC-GNTX-177-DUAL-DISPLAY-REARVIEW-MIRROR-AUTO-DIM-COMPASS-TEMP-SENSOR/273365937798?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

A guy in FL sells them.

Tom

Hi Tom,

Where did you place the temperature sensor on the Caprice wagon, and how did you get wires from that location to the 7-pin plug?

dmg4 wrote:

Where did you place the temperature sensor on the Caprice wagon, and how did you get wires from that location to the 7-pin plug?

The temperature sensor location:  open the hood, the vertical support in front of the radiator is where it is located.  In fact there is already one there from the factory.  Great I said, till I realized it only went to a junction block in the area of the PCM.  Would have been nice if it went inside.  You only need to run two wires from the plug:  fairly easy, across the headliner, down the "A" pillar drivers side, down by the fuse panel.  Now the fun begins, you need to get it through the firewall.  I'll let you see what you come up with, maybe it's better than my way.  My way, is neat and clean and not visible and I did not have to drill any holes, but I would have liked to have had a different route.

Once you get into the engine compartment, head towards the driver fender, follow the path of other wires and head to the front of the radiator.  Use flexible conduit to enclose the wires.  Tye wrap to secure the conduit.  Now you've got a nice job!

As for the plug end, the ebay seller leaves about 6 inches of wire.  I'm not messing with trying to get those pins out.......so, leaving a little loop of wire, I used butt splices to splice the wires.  Make sure to stagger the splices.  Neatly tye wrap the wires to the stem of the mirror and hide underneath the plastic covers.........Done.  It takes a few minutes for calibration.

Tom