I upgraded my side mirror lights to amber LED lights. They were brighter than stock, but I wanted something a little more brighter without having to change out the whole light assembly. I was told that there is a round plastic lens/film on the inside of the light fixture that causes the light to be a little more dim. That sounded like a simple solution to making the light brighter so I cracked a beer and thought I'd give it a look see. From start to finish it took me about 15 minutes per mirror.
*The example is the passenger side mirror, but its the same with the drivers side.
1) Pulling off the mirror. Depending on who you talk to or what you read, some people say to pull on "this", push on "that", take the door panel off, ect...in order to get to the bulb behind the mirror. All I do (not sure if its right or wrong, but it works for me) is take a flat head screwdriver and place it at the bottom of the mirror and gently pull towards me while also pulling with my other hand. You should hear a little snap sound and feel the mirror come free on the bottom.
**Here you'll see how the back of the mirror connects to the housing. TheGREEN arrows show the top clips that slid into the top of the bracket and the RED arrows show the clips that snap ont the bracket. If you try and pull the top of first, you will probably break the clips.
2) Removing the outer housing. You will see a clip in the bottom right corner. Take a flat head screwdriver and push down on the clip while pulling out on the corner.
3) Removing the outer housing continued. On the left side of the mirror you will have 3 clips. I just pulled and it came apart or you could use a flat head screwdriver and separate the clips.
4) removing the lens/film. I decided to remove the whole light housing to remove the lens from inside. Some people will do it while its still in place, but to me it seemed easier to remove it and hold it. I used a metal dental pick and punched a hole in the center of the lens. Then I would dig the dental pick in the hole and pull till pieces of it started sticking up. Then I used a set of needle nose pliers to grab the lens and start removing it. It came out in small pieces, but once I got enough of it out, I could get a good grip on the lens and pull it all out.
It is a noticeable difference. They're brighter during the day and look great at night. It's a very simple mod to improve the light output of the side mirrors. Here is a "before and after" picture. It's not the best picture, but hopefully good enough to see the difference.