Have you ever had a passenger in the back that wants to look for something in a bag or they dropped
something on the floor at night? If you have you will know how annoying and illegal it is to have the
interior light on at the front whilst driving.
In this guide I show you how to install a rear courtesy light and respective wiring
I stumbled across this by accident while I was stripping project £40. so excuse the mess in the photos.
Tools Needed:
Screwdrivers
Knife
Soldering equipment
Crimping equipment
Insulation Tape
Aditional light with plugs
|
Light me up!
|
And we have light
Thats better
|
|
If you have the pillar trim covers in your car, these will need to be loosened or removed first,
simply a number of screws holding them in position. Then, you need to drop the headlining;
this is rather straightforward, pop out the little plastic clip rivets that are along the back and down the sides of the lining.
Remove the coat hooks and grab handles, also remove the sun visors and the front interior light. All of
these are held in with screws under the plastic tabs.
The last things that are holding the lining up are the door and boot rubber seals and some very weak glue.
|
|
As the headlining comes free, make sure that you support it, while you check to see if the hole for the light is there,
it should look like this and should be there on all modals. You will also notice that on the back of the headlining there is a recessed area to enable the lining to be cut.
|
|
If the hole is there, measure from the rear edge of the lining to the middle of the hole and hold the lining back up to the
metal and stick a knife into it and cut away, bit by bit until you get to the edges, I know it looks messy but it will be covered by the light.
|
|
Now its time to make a loom up, yes I know, I like making looms!
The neatest way to do this is to cut the connectors and a length of front wiring loom from a scrap car and extend it.
The total length of the loom from connector to connector is 267cm, which is long enough to reach from the middle of the back of the car,
through the roof and out to the middle of the car to the front courtesy light.
Make sure that you wrap it all up well with a few layers of insulation tape.
|
|
Start at the cutout in the rear and feed the wiring to the right behind the panel until you get to the c pillar,
at this point you need to get the wire out through one of the circular holes and then feed it back into the roof cavity along the passenger side.
|
|
When you reach the "A" pillar or windscreen you will meet the Arial wire, follow this wire to the courtesy light aperture and pull the wires out of it.
Its time to make a connection! Crimp a piggyback connector to each of the wires making sure that you use
insulator sleeves to protect against short circuits and the unit from being earthed.
|
|
Connect the piggyback connector to the lamp unit and then the original wiring to the piggyback,
do this for all the wires and wrap insulation tape around any part that remains exposed.
Refit the headlining, this is removal, reversed, refit all the trims and rubber seals.
|
|
With the rear courtesy light wiring hanging from the roof it is time to connect a light to it.
The light unit is the same as the one used in the front that has the integrated on-off-door, switch.
Push the connectors onto the lamp, the red single wire connects to the side of the bulb and the two way plug
connect to the base of the bulb, it doesn't matter which way this is as both will work.
Push the light home into the roof lining and it will click.
Flick the switch to on and the light should come on, flick it back to off and it will go off.
Then flick it to door switch position and it should be off until you open a door, and then go off as you close it.
|
|
There you have it, simple guide to shed some light on the backseat drivers in all of us.
Hope this guide is of some help.
Guide Written and © On 16 Sep 2005 by Andrew Whiteman (AW3K)
|
