K-Source Custom Extendable Towing Mirror - Electric/Heat w LED Signal - Textured Black - Passenger

Video Transcript for K Source Extendable Towing Mirror with Turn Signals Installation - 2003 Chevrolet Silverado

Hey, everybody. Ryan here at etrailer. Today, on our 2003 Chevy Silverado, we're gonna be taking a look at and showing you how to install the K Source custom fit extendable side towing mirror. So right off the bat, you can pick these mirrors up as a set, so the driver and passenger side, or they're also available individually. So let's say if you already have this type of mirror on your truck and maybe you busted one of 'em, you don't need a set, you can always pick 'em up single too. So whatever the case may be, you got a few different options.

So one of the cool things about these with them being a direct replacement, you can either just freshen your truck up, or if you had damaged ones, these are gonna pop right in. But it seems like what a lot of people are using these for is an upgrade, right So a lot of the 1500, the half-ton trucks, didn't come with these big mirrors, and they just kinda have that standard smaller mirror. Well, that's great for your everyday use, but if you're gonna be pulling around big trailers and things like that a lot, it can kinda get annoying. And then, you really have a couple options. One, get some type of universal fit-type towing mirror or a towing mirror that kinda clamps on to that factory housing.

And those, you know, you have to install 'em and take 'em off and put 'em on all the time. You know, I can see where that would kinda get annoying. Or an option like this, just to replace your whole mirror entirely. And, you know, if it we're me and I was pulling a lot of trailers around, I'd probably go for something like this. Not only is it more convenient, you get that big lens, but I think it kinda makes the truck look a little tougher too, at least in my opinion, you know, if that's your thing.

But, you know, right off the bat, even with the mirror in this position, it helps out a lot. But let's say if you have something really big, like say, you know, this pontoon behind us, you can actually pull this out, and it extends pretty far. So I think it's safe to say, you know, your bases are pretty much covered here. You should be able to see everything you need to and then some with a setup like this. With that said, it is tight.

Some people have mentioned that, that it's kinda difficult to pull out. I don't really think it's too bad. I mean, you have to put so much effort into it, but honestly I would probably want it like that. I feel like if it was loose, then you would deal with this thing rattling around and bouncing around on you. I mean, when it's this far extended, you know, it won't take much for that to happen. So I would be glad it's tight, to be honest with you. That way, everything stays sturdy and you get a good, clear image whenever you're looking into the lens. So just to kinda give you guys an example of what you're actually gonna see out of the lens, here's the big picture and that top portion of the mirror, you know, we just have so much more surface area. You're gonna be able to cover so much more ground. So even with a big pontoon boat like this, I mean, these things are pretty big, you can still see the tires of the trailer, and you can still pretty much see around it completely, which is convenient. And then, that brings me to my next point, that lens there on the bottom, that really throws out that picture and what we're gonna be able to keep our eye on. So even if I come up and walk essentially what would be into the next lane if you're in the highway, you can still see me and you can still have a good idea on what's going on around you. So one thing with the mirrors is you're gonna be able to retain those features that your truck already came equipped with. So in our case, our mirror has already power, okay So we're still able to adjust, set up our lens like we normally would just like a factory deal. Granted, the bottom one is manual, so you will have to do that by hand. And it even has the turn signals still in there, so everything's plug and play. Works just like it would right out of the factory. But with that said, keep in mind, this type of features are only gonna work if your truck already has 'em. So let's say if you have like a work truck package, for example, that the original mirrors don't have the turn signals and they're not power, you can't take the power set that has the turn signals, put 'em in, and expect them to work. They're just not gonna be wired up from it out of the factory, so if that's your case, you don't really need this type. They actually have these mirrors in a couple different configurations. Scroll through a little bit and find the ones that are gonna be best suited for your particular truck. So at the end of the day, you know, if I was planning on doing quite a bit of towing, I would probably do the exact same thing our neighbor did here today and just swap out the whole mirror assembly as opposed to trying to make it work with some strap-on universal mirror or even the clip-on custom fit ones for that matter. You know, those are good for, you know, every now and again on the weekend doing your towing. But, you know, if you're gonna be pulling a trailer a lot, you really can't go wrong. As far as the installation goes, these things go really smooth actually. It's a direct replacement, like I said. They're really well-built. I've actually done these K Source mirrors on several cars now. This truck, I've put some on a Ram, I've put some on a Subaru, and I think another vehicle as well, I can't remember. But with all of 'em, it goes together smooth, you know There's really no issues that you run into as far as getting it on. So really showing it can't be too much trouble. With that said, why don't we go ahead pull into the garage and put 'em on together now. To begin our installation, what we're gonna have to do is remove our door panel. That way, we can get our mirror off and unplugged. Keep in mind too, each vehicle's gonna be a little bit different, depending on if you have power mirrors, power windows, et cetera, and things like that. So just something to think about. But with that said, first thing we're gonna do is remove this panel here, this triangle one. You just take a trim tool and pry that off. You have a piece of foam in here too, we'll just pull that out while we're right here. And then, we can come here to our lock. Gonna pop that out as well. Essentially, just kinda pry it out. Then, if you look here by our door handle, you can get that piece of plastic out through, so you just pull up on it. And when you're doing this, be careful especially on little older vehicles. A lot of times, this plastic, you know, it gets real brittle and can break apart. So just something to think about while you're doing this. With that out of the way, now we can get this out. So these, you're simply just gonna pry up on it. Same thing here in the front. You're just gonna try to work this out. These things are really prone to breaking. Actually, it's pretty tough to get 'em out without breaking 'em. So unless you got a good trick, I'm just gonna continue to kinda work this out and try to get it loose until we can pull it up out of there. Actually, it looks like that pieces are already broken in there. So I guess the only thing really holding it in, here we go, is it's just real tight in the door there. So now that, that is done, you can unplug everything. So let's get a push down on the connectors. This one, you have to kinda hold the center down and pull that gray thing back. Pull this one out as well. Now, we're gonna have two screws you need to pull out, so one will be right there. You can use a seven-millimeter socket. And then, one up here by our lock. With both of these removed, this one's kinda tight in there. Kinda tricky with these two. Everything's so small and we don't wanna drop it, so be careful doing that. And then now, I believe we should be able to get the door panel off. So, yep, if we just lift up on the bottom of it, kinda almost just pops right off. And then, we're gonna have a couple of connectors. One up here looks like it's going to our speaker. Get that disconnected. And looks like one of our entry lights, probably easier just to pull the whole bulb and everything out with that one. So now we got this off, now we can set our panel off to the side. Now, we can peel some of this back. And what we're trying to do is get our mirror connections out. So right here, we'll have a deal where it's connected. Just pull it out. These really don't matter if they break 'cause the new mirror comes with new ones, so I'll just get those out of there. Same deal with this one here. This one as well. And I'm just using a trim tool to get these out, makes it a little bit easier. And now, we can actually start to get the mirror out. So if we look, we're gonna have three 10-millimeter nuts. And you're gonna wanna support the mirror when you take this last one out. Push those tabs in, and pull out on our mirror. Feed your wires through, and get it out of the way. So yeah, we're ready to put the new one in. Take our new mirror now, gonna take the wiring and feed it through the hole there until we get this to line up. Once we have everything lined up, we're gonna take our nuts and just get all of 'em started hand tight. That way, the mirror will be supported and we can let it go and grab some other tools to get these tightened down and everything. Come back with our 10-millimeter and tighten 'em down. I like to kinda go on a crisscross pattern just to help kinda draw everything in evenly. That way, we make sure it kinda pulls that seal down in there and actually creates a seal. So I'll just continue to kinda bounce around, so we get 'em completely snugged. So with that in there, we can take all these clips, push 'em back into place. I'll go ahead and put our foam piece back in as well while we're right here. And we'll just continue to clip everything in. With it all clipped in, we'll just take our plastic here and put that back into place. Now, we're ready to put our door panel back on. If I remember right, I think it's easiest to kinda get the bottom ones in first. I'll tell you too, don't forget to plug your speaker in now. Makes it a lot easier as opposed to when the panel's already on. Set in all the bottom ones in first. Then, kinda push everything flat. Push that door panel down, and you should feel it almost kinda click in or lock into place. That feels pretty good. Door panel's solid so we'll go ahead and replace these screws that we removed. Once those are in there, we can start to put everything back. So exactly what we'll do. Just kinda make our rounds here until everything is assembled. Now, it's a good idea to test the mirror out. So in our case, we'll just try to make our adjustments. So it's moving back and forth the way it should, everything else. Since we have turn signals on this one, we got that lining up. So it seems like everything is working properly. And if you happen to pick up a set of these mirrors, you'd simply just repeat the same process over on the other side to get that one done as well. And that'll finish up our look at and our installation of the K Source custom fit extendable side towing mirror on our 2003 Chevy Silverado..