I don't know which mirror you have, but this is the blendmount that worked for my Dark Horse.
Very helpful, thank you!Howdy all,
Saw a previous thread regarding hard wiring a radar detector but wanted to create a how to thread since it’s pretty simple but not very self explanatory if you don’t know what you’re looking for. With this, your radar will turn on and off with the car
First off, grab your mirror and the mirror stem and pull it out and down to give good access to the giant plastic housing behind the mirror. The black housing has two pieces, the first is directly above the mirror stem and comes off with a little bit of force. You don’t have to remove this piece just yet and I found it easier to first take off the giant plastic piece then take off the smaller one.
To take off the big housing, I started on the driver’s side with just my fingers (a trim removal tool would be great here). Start at the top and slowly pull down with your fingers running across the edge. There are only 4 tabs, and once you get the left tab loose, it’s much easier to do the rest. The tabs are circled in red below.
The tab on the far passenger side gave me some trouble. First off I think the plastic tab was not made properly because it’s all twisted. When I got the housing off the yellow clip stayed on the window. Hasn’t caused me any issues but just be careful even if I wasn’t. It’s sturdy but I’m sure you can break something.
With the housing off, your mirror will now look like this. 12V switched power can be drawn from the rain sensing wipers which is circled in red below.
Unplug the sensor and look for the white and black wires. White is power and black is ground.
I used a simple tap in pin harness and just slid the pins into the holes where the wires go. No cutting or splicing needed. Something like this from Amazon
Once you insert the pins it will look like this!
I wrapped the wires with some electrical tape just so nothing comes loose and plugged the connector back in.
TO CHECK IF IT WORKS YOU HAVE TO PLUG THE CONNECTOR BACK IN. It will not work with the connector disconnected from the windshield.
Turn the car or accessory power on and your radar should now turn on and off with the car!
Now put everything back one. I routed the cord out the “back” of the housing, near the USB port. There’s actually a slot on the right side of the housing for a cable but 1. My cable was too short to do that and 2. The cable just looks dumb hanging out so much.
So I also got a BlendMount for Christmas. This is my second BlendMount and I highly recommend them. I will say though, install is a big pain in the ass since everything is so small and you have to tighten the screws with Allen keys.
The included instructions with the BlendMount are great, so I’m not gonna rewrite them but I do have 3 tips.
1. Step 7 talks about removing the middle spacer on the BlendMount if it hangs too low. I found that it did look like garbage with that middle piece so I removed it before I installed.
2. Since I wanted the radar as close to the mirror as possible, I had to mount the BlendMount as far up with mirror stem as possible. I.e as close to the plastic housing as possible. It’s a pain in the ass, see #3
3. Once you have it in position and lined up semi snug on the stem, it’s going to seem impossible to tighten the final screw. Move the entire stem out and sideways and you’ll have some more room which seems obvious but I struggled for a bit.
Congrats!! After about an hour or so you’ll have a real nice looking and sturdy mount with a radar that turns on and off with the car and no wire routing or splicing needed. I hate the suction cups and like a clean look. Here is my final install picture.
Excellent result. Like you, I am scared to start popping open panels. I would like to have front and rear cameras and a radar detector mounted, though.Thanks for this post. I had a very messy install between a dashcam plugged into the visor USB, and a Uniden R3 plugged into the ol' cigarette lighter. I'm a little anxious about just yanking and pulling panels, not trusting where or how they're fastened, so this write up and your pictures gave me the confidence to take a go at it. Very happy with the result. Before and after pictures below.
Next weekend, I'm having a sunstrip installed, then after it cures a better mount for the RD, but the wiring is already a huge improvement. Thanks again!
Glad you found it useful. Nearly 30k miles later, no tickets, no electrical gremlins, no regrets
I ended up getting one clip undone on the passenger side. From there, I could see that the piece that holds the housing itself onto the glass was starting to come off around the other clips, so I gave up and will be returning my blendmount/wire tap kit.
I’m just running the standard cord from the cigarette lighter to my radar. It’s mounted low (right above my dash) so it doesn’t get in the way too much.
Gotcha. I normally mount detectors as high as poss. But under the mirror is the only practical place on the "Stang. It's usually easy to tuck power cords under the A pillar trim and edge of the headlining without disassembling stuff.
Mine is mounted on the windshield passenger side of the mirror at the top. The power comes from the wiper sensor. No vision blocked and no hanging wires.
I couldn't do that. The V1 stopped the sunvisor from going back to the screen.
