footwell courtesy light mod (for dummies)

[GottaBeTRD]

Ill try and post more pics as requested; however, I've had some problems with my computer so I'm a little limited to what i can do but here we go

This Is actually really easy to do, and i like details so I've made this as detailed as possible. I have very little knowledge about the electrical stuff, I still haven't figured out how to use my ohm meter lol.
Anyway i basically learned everything on how to do this from trial and error. Dont let scare you though, my loss is your gain!

Precautions:
I did accidentally blow my dome light fuse while i did my wiring. This somehow made a disconnection to my battery so i lost all my presets and sound levels on my stereo :ybrick: not a big deal, but be careful what your wires touch, or just disconnect your battery and you will be fine.

Step 1:
Buy the goods. I used these strip lights from VLEDS.

the ones i have are a 6k white so they are a little bit cooler white then my 5k led dome light but no worries it still looks good. They have other color options

I believe I used 18 gauge wire to work with everything. Then these little tappers make wire tapping a lot easier.

Step 2:
you gotta start taking stuff apart. I would start with the dash. Most of you have probably already done this so i wont go into detail as to how to how to do this

So after your dash apart, pull your speedo component out and start pulling out the plugs.

There is a special wire that is on the blue connector that's gonna make all the magic happen. here it is here. Blue wire with yellow stripe.

you will notice that this is the same color wire that is connected to your dome light

this wire is your power. this is a constant power wire hence why your dome light can still come on when the truck is off.
there should be enough room behind the dash to fit a wire tap in there, so get your taps out and your extra wire and tap it to the wire

Now you can tape that thing up really good with electrical tape then make sure you give yourself enough wire to work with. Mark your power wire with some tape so you know which one is power. and connect it to the LED

At this time or before the taping I would touch the two powers (on your truck and the one on the LED) and then ground your other wire to some metal on your truck. it should turn on. Now you can tape everything up and put your dash back together. your done with this step.

Step 3
time to take some more stuff apart. Take your kick panels or door sills what ever you call them out. you need to take both doors trims out so you can remove the trim piece that covers your seat-belt. This thing should pop right out (its only clipped in) Once your in you should see a white plug that has a black wire going into i thicker gauged red and black wire. This is your ground wire that works with the switch. disconnect the the plug

Now at this time my buddy came over and really wanted to use his soldering skills on my wires. this is not required, you can still use the red tappers if you want. but here is what we did
expose the black wire

then solder your extra wire to this. (sorry i had pics of this step but they are stuck on my camera and i can get them right now) its really easy, just expose both wires enough. wrap the new wire around the exposed part and solder it, then tape it up. Or just tap it with wire tappers.

Last step:

your pretty much done now and everything else should be self explanatory. Your LEDs should have 2 different wires, a ground and a power. You now have a ground and a power coming from your truck.

Feed the ground wire to your dash and connect your LED's to the two wires. (MARK YOUR WIRES) or use different colors so you know which is which. you can use a few different things to connect the wires.

as for the passenger side. NOTE: like i said earlier, i learned a lot of stuff through trial and error, and this was one of my slight mistakes. You can just tap into the driver side LED to get power to run your passenger side but this will result in the lights only coming on when you open the driver door.

What i would recommend is, do step 3 for the passenger side so get a ground from over there. This will make it so your passenger side light will come on when you open that door. you can still use the same power source though. Im pretty sure you can do this for any door, it just depends on how much wire you want to be running through your truck.
finally the results (sorry i had more pics but ill post them when i get my life back haha
this is without my dome light on

 

[Sherwood4Runner]

Nice write up! I had a setup like this in my last car but never tapped it in those wires so that the lights came on when the doors opened. I only had a manual switch. Nice work!

 

[Hepar]

Wow. That's really cool. Would come in handy given how many times I drop crap on my floor and can't find it.

 

[A.Wilson013]

Nevermind, I get it.

 

[GottaBeTRD]

LMAO yeah i couldn't think of a better title

 

[TegoXR]

does this work for the rear doors as well?

 

[aha2988]

works for anything you send that constant power wire supply to. just some info on the ohm meter...

ohms are a measurement of resistance through a circuit. to break it down if you have a power source say 50amps and have a bulb that only requires 20 amps you have to slow the current down. (amps=current) electrical current is what it sounds, the flow of energy through a circuit similar to water flowing down a river. Ohms would be a measurement of the current loss between the water fall (50 amp power supply) and the lake (the object being fed with power)

with that said what you would use an ohm measurement for would be A.) calculate amperage traveling through a circuit B.) checking for an open circuit (would read infinite resistance) C.) read a faulty or semi faulty connection or circuit (would read higher ohms than adequate for the electrical circuit application)

for application of using ohm measurements to calculate amperage: Voltage, amperage, resistance and wattage all correlate together mathematically so you can use those formulas to find the missing link if you know the voltage and the resistance you can calculate the amperage drawn.. board so I thought I'd Share lol

 

[GottaBeTRD]

what he said^^ haha

the only issue i have found is that when you hook them to what ever door using , its going to light up your keyring and give you the door chime if your keys are in the ignition. Right now i hooked the passenger side up so now both the driver side and pass side come on, when I open the passenger door.

 

[hrt4me]

this may be a future project soon...

 

[shadow247]

Couldn't you just tap everything into the dome light itself and not mess with anything else. This way they will come on when any door is opened. Run a relay for the power and use the dome light as a switch. This way you could turn them on manually without opening the door, and they could be turned off by turning off the dome light switch.

 

[GottaBeTRD]

yeah that was my original plan, but it didn't work out. for 1 tapping the wire directly to the dome light was pretty hard because of the space. I couldn't for the life of me get anything behind the headliner.

So I found the same wire behind the dash and it has a constant power to it weather the door is closed or not. (why you can turn it on while your truck is off) I tried tapping into this wire and the lights just stayed on, and there was no way to turn them off. I wished it was that easy lol cause that' s what i wanted.

 

[shadow247]

Well now that you've told me it's tough/impossible, I have to try! Of course I need to go pick up some lights, but I've got all the rest of the supplies in my toolbox from other wiring/lighting projects.

 

[GottaBeTRD]

lol! post your results here man. I'd love to see if you can figure it out with a relay. I'm pretty new to wiring so I have no idea how a relay works.

BTW that blue wire with the yellow stripe is the same wire as your dome, i just found easier access and more space from the dash. This method i did kind of gets annoying with the door chime coming on when the passenger door open so If your plan works i may have to change it up a little.

 

[tyr0981]

nice write sir, like the results too!

 

[hrt4me]

Well now that you've told me it's tough/impossible, I have to try! Of course I need to go pick up some lights, but I've got all the rest of the supplies in my toolbox from other wiring/lighting projects.

I'd also be interested in knowing whether there's an easier/simpler way to achieve the same result

 

[shadow247]

I'll have to see if I can't get the wiring diagram. What I am thinking is to wire into the switch for the dome light, that way the lights will only come on with the dome light. I have pretty good electrical knowledge, but haven't messed with a dome light before. Unfortunately, I have little to no time to be messing around with my Runner since I have a 10 week old baby. But the basic idea is to use the domelight switch to control everything. I'm sure it can be done, it just will require a little trial and error.

 

[GottaBeTRD]

Congrats on the baby man! that's awesome. That would be cool if you could get it figured out with a relay. it sounds complicated but if it works, I'm gonna do some more lights in the back.

 

[shadow247]

Yeah I'm sure I could get it figured out. There's really nothing to wiring a relay. All you need to do is find the wire that is "on" when the dome light is on, and I could easily walk you through setting up a relay. Based on the picture I posted, hook up the wire that is "on" or "hot" only when the dome light is on to 86. 30 goes to the + side of your new lights. 85 goes to ground, and 87 goes to the battery or your power source. Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[Thurlo76]

i did that same thing in my 87' only i also put them under the doors so when you opened them not only would the foot area be lit up but also the rock sliders i made. that way i wouldnt keep hitting my leg on them when i stepped in. it was pretty awesome when i stepped out of the rig and dropped something.

my 87' also had a role bar in back and i ran an LED strip on the underside of that and wired it to the tail gate so when i dropped the tail gate (and a switch in the front was turned on) it would light up.

im thinking about doing this same thing with my new 97' only tap into the rear dome light and run the strip on the top of the rear hatch so when it opens it will illuminate the cargo area. i am more than likely going to end up putting the lights in front to!

ALSO!!!! if you get a 16 foot strand from amazon for like $10 bucks you will end up with extra!!! SOOOOOO....... what i did on my 87' was run the few remaining feet on the underside of my hood along the supports and wired them to a toggle switch that was hidden right by the fuse box so when i wanted to work on my truck in the dark... or i broke down (only happened ONCE!!!) i could just flick the switch and the whole engine compartment was lit up. it was wonderful not having to hold a flashlight in my mouth!!!

 

[Thurlo76]

also you dont need a relay. all you need to do is run a constant power to the power side of the lights and then wire the ground in with the door switch (that grounds it out creating a circuit) allowing the lights to work.... its much easier and cheaper than a relay..... id use a relay on hard wiring a GPS or an extra set of outlets or something. the lights dont require much draw so you would be just fine hard wiring it in without one.