DIY blue and white footwell lighting
 

My car came without a lighting package, no spectrum lighting or courtesy footwell lighting, so I added a budget version.

I wanted to keep the installation as OEM as possible, so the first challenge was to find lighting that would fit the existing light cutouts. Not as easy as it sounds. I ended up buying blue SMDs on EBay, but no luck finding a 1/4 turn lamp socket that fits a 16mm hole. The sockets I bought on Amazon were listed as fitting a 16mm hole, but actually fit a 13mm hole. I made snap-on bases for them out of 1/8 inch thick PVC (cut with a band saw) and the 3 layers are held together with PVC cement. The SMD wires run through a hole in the base, and is held on with 2-part black epoxy. Since the OD of the round sockets I bought were just under 16mm, I decided to use them. I made my own 1/4 turn mounts for the sockets out of the same 1/8" PVC using a dremel tool. Those 2 pieces are epoxied to the socket.
Shown here with connector leads (red/black) soldered on and covered with heat shrink tube. The connector is the same that comes on the SMDs.

Now that I had the lights, it was time to make a wire harness. I used a single pole, double throw rocker switch to be able to switch the lights off, white, or blue. One end of the power lead (red/black 2 conductor wire) has 2 thin gold colored pins soldered on to tap into the power lead and ground. The other end attaches to the common on the rocker switch, and ground to the light wires. The two leads that go to the lights are 3 conductor for ground, blue light, and white light. At the end are female connectors that will accept the lights. All connections are soldered and heat shrunk. If you zoom in you can see the blue SMD glued to the snap-in PVC base.

Installation on the drivers side is easy, the passenger side, not so much. There are three 4mm screws that hold the drivers side trim panel in place, but once removed the panel did not drop down easily. The seat side of the panel has a lip that wraps over the air bag module, preventing it from dropping. There is not enough clearance behind the panel on the firewall side to get the lip free of the air bag. I ended up loosening, but not removing the 2 screws that hold the air bag. By loosening the screws, I was able to drop the airbag about a half to 3/4 inch, enough to get the panel lip past it. I was able to drop the front of the panel enough to work over it, but the I never figured out what was restricting the back.

There is enough clearance through the center console to feed the wire from the driver side to the passenger side, just gently poke a stiff wire through to use as a snake and tape the end of the harness to it to pull it through.

Once the passenger side lights are mounted, the connections can be made to the harness and the panel can be put back. There are some wiring harnesses that I had to move to the side of the A/C vents so the panel would fit back properly.

On the drivers side, I used the dremel tool and a small file to cut the rectangular hole for the rocker switch. Picture shows it mounted under the dash, next to the center console.

Rather than cut into the existing wies to tap into them, I kind of cheated. The gold colored pins on the end of my harness wedge between the plastic and metal in the existing electrical connector. The existing black wire is black wire is ground, and grey is the courtesy light circuit. The connector is easy enough to get to, if I have a problem with reliability of my connection, I can always re-do it.

Here's a picture of the lights in place and the connection points.

Hitting the rocker switch enables me to switch between blue or white light, or turn them off completely. These are courtesy lights, so they come on when a door is open, and fade slowly after about 10 seconds. They also go on if the interior lights are turned on using the rotary light switch on the dash.

You did a good job with your install and it looks great. The best part is the integration to your stock door plunger and the dimmer switch.

Very nice.
Glad that you did everything robustly (heat shrink and soldered).
It should be trouble-free.

Thanks for your help looking for parts!

By request, here's links to some of the parts:

Blue leds
https://www.ebay.com/itm/T10-6-SMD-6...edirect=mobile

Wedge base led socket
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Single pole, double throw rocker switch
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you're patient and want to save a few bucks, I'm sure you get this stuff cheaper on Ebay shipped from Asia.

The only problem with the lights is they don't fit as-purchased. I had to build the snap-in bases for the blue LEDs and modify the bulb sockets to fit.

The wire, shrink tube, connector pins, and 2 pin led connectors I already had from other projects.

Great job! Looks awesome! 👏👍🏻

Thanks!

This looks so good I think I will have to do this with white and red

hell yeah!!!! just ordered all my parts

Get anywhere with your project?