I installed my door handle lights this weekend and thought i would do a write up for everyone. The total install time with correct tools took about 4 hours. I used led strips i bought from advanced auto parts.


Tools needed are:
philips screwdriver
panel poper
pick tool
10mm socket and ratchet
soldering iron
solder
heat gun
electrical tape
wire stripers





The pictures below show the clips parts and screws that need to be removed.



Remove the push clips at both ends of the door panel by pushing the center sections in and pull the whole clip out.
The arm rest piece unclips by prying upward with a panel popper, then un screw the two screws that have been exposed.





Remove the screw in the handle and slide the whole handle to the right. The handle should now pop out. I use a pick tool to unclip the handle from the rod.





At this point you should be able to pop all the clips around the panel. Once uncliped slide the whole panel upward off the lock and top of the door



Un clip the wire harnesses



Once you have that done, remove the panel under the steering wheel to expose the wires needed to power the lights. Un screw the four bolts and the panel should drop down. you will also need to remove kick panels and floor trim panels as well as the b pillar panels to run the wires to the doors.



In my case i wired them into the key ring light that way the lights turn on and off when the doors open, they also stay lit for about 5 seconds after the door is shut and are activated with the keyless entry. The green and white wires are the positive and negative i connected to.






I ran the wires through the boot between the body and the door. It was kinda hard and i had to use a "snake" to pull the wires through. I removed the speaker and ran the wires through the speaker hole. When runing the wires through the door make sure to tape the wire to the door or zip tie it to the pre existing wire in the door that way the window does not interfear with anything.







I drilled a small hole in the handle to run the wire through, just big enough to fit the wire.






I heated the adhesive strip on the led and cleaned the handle to get the best adhesion



Once stuck on i wired the led strip and zip tied the loose wires


repeat all the steps for the rest of the doors and well thats it, just reverce the steps to put it all back togher. And sorry for the long write up

 

Thats pretty neat! Nice looking 4runner too!

 

So the key ring light comes on and stays on when you unlock the car via key less entry? How long does it stay on? This is a good idea, but I'm thinking up some ways to expand on it.

 

yes the key ring light stays light for about ohh 7 seconds or so, and so do the door handles. The first time i did this mod i wired them to my dome light but then the door handle lights only stayed lit when the doors were open. As soon as you shut the doors the handles turn off. and they did not turn on with the keyless entry.

 

bling bling

 

That's pretty sweet, great write-up.

 

i forgot to add in the price for this mod. all i had to buy was the led strips that cost about $40 for 4

 

Good write-up on a nice mod. I see also you went for a "stock green" appearance too.

 

Nice, I like it!

 

Thanks a ton for doing this write up! I've been fooling around with putting LEDs in my footwells and I'm gonna use the idea of tapping into the key ring light. I just have one question. When u tapped into the positive and negative of the key ring light, did u connect the LEDs in parallel or in series? I'm a complete noob at anything electrical. Any help would be appreciated even though this is like 4 years old haha thanks

 

If you look at the picture where he showed the connection to the key ring feed you can see he just tapped on to the wires so that would be a parallel connection. For simplicity you could just use a pair of Sta-Con tap connectors if you wanted to as long as there is room for them.

 

Nicely done!!

 

Nice...I've been planning on using the same idea but for ground lighting instead of handle lights. Have to be careful with this though....one could get carried away

 

Great idea and im partial to picture heavy write ups.