FAQ: Interior Lighting Questions (Dash/Guage Color)

I know I have been posting a lot of questions lately but I have been doing some srping cleaning while the weather is nice here in OH. I have found some things I am not sure about.

What is the number for this crazy light? It goes in the door handle part that you can see in the pic. It is very small and I have never seen it.




In this pic you can see the shifter and surrounding areas. Well I would imagine the letters P N R D etc should be lit up rather than the shifter itself (where the arrow points). I can see the shifter rod very well, but not the letters so much.


Can this be taken apart so I can reinstal this light?

my light on the driver's door handle went out. I only notice we had it when I noticed a glow at night fron the other handle. At first I thought it was a courtesy to the pessenger to find things but nope.

Yeah I don't even know the number for such a bulb. I will check walmart than some auto parts stores then the dealer if I have to. Now I am about to take out the console where the shifter is to find where to properly mount the light in the second pic.

The bulb number should be in the FSM, I don't have mine with me right now but I'm sure someone else could look it up.

You could always try asking the dealership about it when they're fixing your tensioner and belt.

Lol. for sure!

I'm glad you posted on this. Both the grip light and the handle on my driver's side are out and these little things really bother me. (type A personality) I'll check the availability of these at work and see but these look like LED's from the picture NO 4 EVR posted so i really doubt it.

How did you take that one out in the picture?
It looks like youre just supposed to pry it out but i'm not about to do that without being sure..

That one is very easy. Just use a flat head screw driver and some love (don't want to break or scratch anything!) and pry the little plastic cover off behind the door opener lever. Its right there in my pic. After that pull the whole piece out. It has one clip IIRC.

There is another one of those lights in the door handles (the ones you use to close the door from the inside) that you may have mentioned. That takes the same light bulb. However I don't know what that is supposed to light... Mine have a blue lense over all these lights for a blue tint, and as far as it looks, the blue lenses are stock. So my door handles light up blue.

To take the lights out of the door handles (the ones to close the car door) just use a star bit and take out the 2 screws. You will have to remove the little rubber screw hole covers. They just pop out easy no chance of breaking.

Anyone know what they light up? The ones on the bigger door handle?

EDIT: NM, I figured it out. The light in this handle lights up the area with the window and lock buttons etc...



But this bulb is the same as the ones in my first pic. So now I am down to 1 light, the other 3 are out.

well those lights are definitely not at my store so im thinkin dealer. im gonna stop by and see how much they are and get em if theyre not a lot. otherwise, i may try replacing them with 12v leds or something.

BTW does anyone have any pictures of the inner door panel removed or happen to know exactly how the wires to those two bulbs goes?

Not sure about the wires but here is the door panel removal.

https://rivperformance.editboard.com/Other-Stuff-c3/Interior-f20/Interior-Door-Lights-p2618.htm?highlight=#2618

LOL, just had my door panel removed but I didnt take pics because I thought no one would need them. It is easy to remove

Just undo the screws and pull the panel up and out. plugs to unplug. I may need to take my panel off again so I can take pics if anyone wants.

NO 4 EVR wrote:

LOL, just had my door panel removed but I didnt take pics because I thought no one would need them. It is easy to remove

Just undo the screws and pull the panel up and out. plugs to unplug. I may need to take my panel off again so I can take pics if anyone wants.

did u look at the wiring for those two little lights near the door handle (not the ones on the bottom) at all? i wanted to know if they have any connectors any where or is it just wire all the way. in other words, to replace the bulbs, do i have to cut the wire?

id like to see pics if possible next time

i went to the dealer and they said those little lights aren't available anymore and there is no connector or anything (so i'm cuttin the booger), it just trails off into the inaccessible recesses of the main door loom.

I'm definitely going to set all four of those lights up with LED's so when i do that i'll be sure to provide details and photographs of it for yall

Good idea using LEDs. If you can't find 12v versions in the right size, you could rig up a series of diodes to lower voltage and use 3 volt bulbs from Radio Shack.

so i was testing the light circuit with a multimeter and i accidentally shorted the two pins of the connector with the test lead and knocked out the lights. looked through all fuse boxes and they all look ok. any ideas?

Did you check continuity on all fuses? Sometimes they look okay when they're blown.

almost all of my fuses are those light up ones that glow when they blow. are those known to not work ever?

i replaced every minifuse in the car. still nothing

well i've finally gotten around to redoing those lights for the doors. It was a little more work than i had hoped but it seems to have worked out well.

The light in the door handle channel and the one thats inside the pull handle for the door had been out on the driver side since i got the car. They are not sold at the dealer anymore. I have ass loads of LED's so I used a couple to replace the bulbs with. They didn't work too well on the upper handle so I'm going to just use the OEM bulbs on that but the bottom handle with these LED's works excellent. Some major porting was necessary to make the ironically larger LED fit into the socket and diffuser.

I'll get some pics posted shortly...

original upper light with out diffuser

LED installed onto socket

wow. looks good.

To get the LED up through the black connector did you drill it out or do you have exceptional soldering skills??

allfalldown wrote:

To get the LED up through the black connector did you drill it out or do you have exceptional soldering skills??

just so you know I typed a response to this last night when i was drunk so i should probably be glad it didn't work then. that would have been interesting to read.

What you do is pull the little bulb off and basically rip the wires out of the plastic socket so you have a bare socket. then modification to the socket will need to be made (through drilling) to accommodate the LED and I would highly recommend soldering and heat shrinking the LED to your connector / wire.

If its one of the big LEDs like I got, drilling the socket is crucial because the LED needs to fit into the socket in order to clear the diffuser that covers it once its on the car. after all said and done, about 1/3 of my LED is hidden in the socket. If you find a smaller LED that will work, you may be able to just glue the wires/bulb to the socket like the OEM ones are but that size LED is hard to find suitable for this application.

If you do this, keep in mind that you definitely want to get automotive (12v) LEDs and no other kind. Otherwise you will have to do some tricks and math with a resistor to make it work.

turtleman wrote:

allfalldown wrote:

To get the LED up through the black connector did you drill it out or do you have exceptional soldering skills??

just so you know I typed a response to this last night when i was drunk so i should probably be glad it didn't work then. that would have been interesting to read.

Been there before. Always good not to go near the computer when you get home after a night of drinks. hah

Thanks for that response. I should know tomorrow if I ordered the right part replacements (the whole thing, wire, bulb, connector).

I'm doubtful but I spoke to the rep on the phone and he held it in his hand as I described it!