How to wire up footwell and ignition barrel lights

[Trevstar]

After buying a set of optional extra ignition and footwell lights from another member on the forum (thanks for the Japanese treats ), I was posed with a question.. How the hell do I wire this up?

Searching on the internetz and coming up with nothing particularly useful, I decided to go poking around with a multimeter and I thought I would post my findings

First off, mine is a N/A SR, however this shouldn't matter too much, but just as a warning there will be differences between models, so use this information as a general guide, basic knowledge in wiring will be required to wire these up, so do it at your own discretion

*ignition barrel light will NOT fit an N/A, period! It cannot be made to fit simply because of the immobilizer ring around the ignition, unless you remove your immobilizer completely* A light ring was sacrificed to bring you this information

What you got?
Okay, so you got your footwell and/or ignition lights, take a look at what you got exactly, you must have a small grey or black control box within the wiring

This box is what controls the dimming effect when the door closes. Without this box, well, I only hope you didn't pay very much for it otherwise you've been mugged off

Next thing to see if you have a extension harness attached. I believe there is different plugs for Glanza & GT, but if you have it then you might be in luck! If you have a turbo model & your plug matches up to your loom, then your install is going to be very simple! You will need to remove the kick panel and the bottom half of the dash on the drivers side (Passenger side on GT I believe), and plug the harness in-between the two connectors that it fits. More info can be found here: clicky clicky

If yours does not have this harness or doesn't have the right connectors, then I will have to be cut (if you have a N/A, you will need to cut it anyway). Once cut you should be left with 3 wires: a red, a black and a red/white wire

You should also have a yellow tubular case with a 1A glass fuse inside, attached to the red wire (pictured below), if this has been cut off also then you will need to add one later

How to test
Now we're going to test if they actually work. Get yourself a 12v battery (You should find one in the engine bay of your starlet), or any other 12v power source and connect the red wire to the positive, black to negative, and leave the red/white wire loose and touch it to the negative, the lights should now illuminate. When you take the red/white wire away from the negative, the lights should slowly dim after about 7 seconds, this means they are working, good job!

Not working? First check your actually getting power to it and wires are in the correct place as above, Then check the glass fuse (if attached). If it's still not working then you may have a fried circuit board in the control box , but an electrical technician will be able to test/repair this but it might be a little costly as some of the components on the circuit board are outdated and not made anymore and are hard to get hold of (more on this later) 

How to wire up
Okay so now you want to fit them, now this is the harder part because you will be spending a lot of time in the footwell, so let's get into it. If you've been paying attention, then you should know which wires do what, if not, then to put it simply:

-Red = permanent 12V
-Black = earth/ground
-Red/white = switched earth (door switches) 

Red Wire:
You will need to connect the red wire (Permanent 12v) by tapping into another permanent live wire, personally I fitted an additional fusebox behind the glove box when I fitted my sub as I knew I would be wiring up additional stuff later on, so I used this.

However if your good with a multimeter then you can find a permanently live wire elsewhere to tap into, or you can connect it up to the wires leading to the 'DOME' fuse under the dash (this is perhaps the easiest way) 

If for some reason you wish to connect it up behind the kick panel, then the only wire that I remember off the top of my head being a permanent 12v that you can tap into is within these bunch of connectors. 

You will have to remove the lower part of the dash and remove the ventilation duct to access them

Among them is a blue connector and on it is a blue/yellow wire (At least on the N/A, may be different on Glanza & GT). This wire goes to your interior light and is permanently live.

You will need to tap the red wire into the blue/yellow wire either by soldering or crimping 🤮 (whichever is your preferred preference), I would also highly recommend adding an inline 1 or 2 amp fuse at this point if the original one was cut from the wiring. This is because the circuit board that controls the dimming is very sensitive in the event of a short or power surge

However, as I mentioned above, tapping into the 'DOME' fuse wiring will probably be the easier option, but you should still add a 1 or 2 amp inline fuse if the original was cut off

Red/White Wire:
While you are in there wiring up the red wire, there is also a red/white wire on the same blue plug in the N/A SR (but again there may be differences for Glanza & GT, in fact the red/white wire may be located on the white plug on the glanza, but you'll need to double check this by setting the interior light to 'door' and unplugging this white connector and see if the interior light goes out).

This red/white wire is to your door switches, go ahead and take the red/white wire from the footwell/ignition barrel light and tap it into the red/white wire on the connector

Alternatively, you can add a length of wire and connect it to one or possibly both door switches individually like I have. Again this is probably the easiest option

Black Wire:
And the black wire simply gets bolted to the chassis. If needs be you can extend the wire and put a ring terminal onto the wire and bolt it to the chassis under the kick panel, in the same place as the factory white/black ground wires are bolted to

 

"Ive wired up the lights but they stay on with the door shut? WTF!?"

Okay so there are a few things to check here:

- First, make sure you have wired it up correctly! As I said above, you should have a relatively good/basic understanding of electronics and circuits and that this should be used as a general guide, check everything with a multimeter

-Do you have a aftermarket alarm? Some aftermarket alarms such as Cobra (not sure about factory alarm), the way they work can be a little strange. The wire from the alarm that attaches to the door switches, to detect when the door opens, can actually act as an earth causing the lights to stay on, but dont worry, you dont need to remove your alarm!! This is a very simple fix.

Go buy yourself a '1N4004' diode, and install it to the alarm wire (*with the band facing away from the alarm) so that the alarm can still operate and sound the alarm when the door opens, but stops the lights earthing out through the alarm. See diagram below

If you dont know how a diode works, it basically only allows current to flow in one direction only

-If you dont have an alarm then you may have some other aftermarket device within the wiring that is acting as an earth, it might not be 'leaking' enough to light up the interior light fully, but enough to make the footwell lights think the door is open, this is probably something for the more experienced to trace

"Ok, so where do I mount the foot-well lights?"

There actually isn't anywhere specific to mount the lights, at least not on the N/A, its more of a trial and error and just seeing what works for you, just get yourself some double sided tape and get sticking! Below I have taken some pictures to give you an idea as to how I have mounted them:

- Driver side

 

- Passenger side 

 

[2021 update - I've had good results with 'Harris' number plate tape from halfords, they haven't shifted or fallen off since I fitted these back in 2016, just make sure to clean both surfaces before you stick] 

"Cool, im off to go buy myself some LEDs to fit!"

Woah! Hold on a minute there buckaroo! Youve gone to all this effort to fit these damn things, lets not fuck things up now! Reason I say this is because the bulb holders (particularly for the footwell lights) are designed differently compared to any others like the ones behind your heater controls on the dash for example.

You can't just put any style of LED in there as you can/will actually short it out and damage the circuit board, and you will have completely wasted your time fitting them. In particular it will damage one of the transistors on the board (I'm speaking from experience here!) which are hard to find because they are no longer made and therefore expensive to replace, and you'll need to do some soldering

Plus most LEDs won't sit at the correct angle to disperse enough light anyway (facing to the sides rather than down), so it will actually be less bright than a normal bulb, so maybe think twice before fitting LEDs! It may be better to just leave them alone and use normal bulbs

If you really really really must have LED's then the only way you're going to make them work is by making sure the LED's you intend to use have ONE pin on each side of the bulb, not 2! Otherwise it will short out and fuck the transistor on the board I mentioned above!

Alternatively, you can cut off and replace the bulb holders with new ones to be on the safe side as I have and buy small square SMD LED boards that are commonly used as led replacements for festoon bulbs on interior lights so that the LED's point straight down

I hope this information will actually help some people out

Trev✪

Edited November 2, 2021 by Trevstar

[aleximport25]

That's a hell of a write up buddy :-)

Should prove useful to many folk

[Trevstar]

On 7/7/2016 at 9:34 AM, aleximport25 said:

That's a hell of a write up buddy 🙂

Should prove useful to many folk

Well thank you!

Although I should have really posted it in the tutorial section!  

Edited August 2, 2021 by Trevstar