Passat Anti-Dazzle Rain-Sensor mirror replacement - again (longish)

[vwsportruck at yahoo.com (Mark Bednarz)]

Hi All,
   
  As many of you may remember back in the winter the rear-view mirror for my '00 wagon had developed an air-bubble in the fluid for the auto-dimming feature. The dealer wanted close to $400 for this mirror at the time so I went the salvage yard route and paid $75 for one. Yesterday that one exploded and dripped fluid all over my console/dash/etc. At that point I decided that I'd never put another fluid-filled one in the car and would find a way to have one with the little flip-knob. 
   
  Because of the rain sensor that the mirror mounts to there are no other mirrors that will fit. The guy that saved the day for me on this was Mike Love, whom some people already know (for those who don't, he's a great friend to have, regardless of if you have a VW or not). Mike suggested that I keep the mounting point of the mirror but since it has a clip ring holding the mirror on, remove the auto-dimming mirror and replace with one from a '98-ish Passat that didn't have the auto-dimming feature. 
   
  The local pick-n-pull had one which I took home for $10 and proceeded to perform this minor surgery. Stupid me broke 2 of the tabs that the "new" mirror's clip would surround the old mirror's mount with. So..... I decided to open both mirrors up and take the new mirror's mirror and flip-knob hardware and mount them in my "old" mirror. Some work with the dremel tool on the inside of the "old" mirror and all was fitted in and I now have a functional rear-view mirror that is the correct one but will never drip/explode fluids again.
   
  -=Mark
  '80 Scirocco
  '81 Rabbit Sportruck
  '00 Dasher Estate