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Rear Footwell Lighting Problem.. Help?


Brigante
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This actually relates to my new mondeo but its a mod I originally did to my focus and I'm using the parts from my focus. Also know a lot of focus owners have carried out the same mod but not many mondeo owners have to this seems to be the best place to post.

I have just finished wiring in my rear footwell lighting that I took out of my focus. I was going to wire the new looms straight into my existing front footwell lighting to keep the new wiring as short as possible.

On inspection the wiring to the front footwell lighting is rather inaccessable due to the stupid locations ford decided to place the bulb holders compared to on the focus. I'm in quite a lot of pain at the moment as I've some how pulled/sprained my right shoulder/arm/neck/shouldrblade area and I cant bend or twist very well right now so I didn't want to be awkwardly faffing about in the footwells too long or removing any more panels than necessary to try and locate the bulb holder wiring to tap into it.

So I decided to extend the new looms about 3 times their length, run the wire around the door seal, up to and around the A pillar and into the roof lining. Removed the front courtesy light, pulled the new loom through and spliced the earth into the submarine lighting earth and the live into the main courtesy light live. Assuming that it would now run off the same timer as my courtesy light and so that the rear footwell lighting would now come on/go off with the front footwell lighting and front/rear courtest lights.

The whole process went rather well considering the amount of pain I'm in apart from almost slicing off my middle finger after ever so slightly slipping with a brand new stanley fatmax blade.

However, as per the title of this thread I've noticed a problem. The rear footwell lighting for some reason isn't on the timer with the rest of the lights and is infact live the whole time. Not a major problem as I know they should cut off after about 10minutes of locking the car or being contstantly on, but it means while driving around they are going to be staying on which isnt good.

Can anyone advise on how to rectify this and the cause of why its happening? Have I wired it in wrong somewhere?

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IDE have put the illuminated ignition ring into the mondeo and run the rear footwell lights from there far easier that way they will work normally or wait till you can and just run them from the footwell directly to the light as you've done doesn't work no idea why

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isnt that always on that on one of the lines, yeah it turns on when doors are opened but you can have it on all the time too meaning you'll need to find out what all the wires are doing, put a meter on both connectors, see whats live when doors open and closed, if its like the boot then off is two lives, on and one turns off.

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Darren's right - the 2 feeds to the interior light work differently.

One is only live while the doors are open and ties in when you have the switch on the light in that position, then the second feed is there all the time for when you want to switch the light to permanently on regardless of what the doors are doing. This would also do the honours when map lights are present.

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IDE have put the illuminated ignition ring into the mondeo and run the rear footwell lights from there far easier that way they will work normally or wait till you can and just run them from the footwell directly to the light as you've done doesn't work no idea why

Cant fit the illuminated ignition ring as the mondeo has keyless start so theres no ignition barrel to fit it to.

It was thinking about the how the ignition barrel illumination wires in that made me wire it in this way as I remembered it comes with a loom that you tap into the courtesy light feed with.

Wont be attmpting wiring into the footwells again as the wiring really is inaccessable

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hopefully i have just tapped into the wrong live feed. When I looked it looked as if there was only one possiable wire to tap into. I'll drag myself back down to the car in a bit and look again

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OK so I've had a play about and my findings get stranger

Please see the below image

post-34566-0-12444700-1422551585_thumb.j

The blue circle is my new live that I am trying to wire in for my rear footwell lighting

The red circle is where I first tried to tap into, which results in the rear lighting being always live, whether the car is turned off/on or driving round with ignition on

The yellow circle is where I have just tried tapping into which is what I thought would solve the problem. Sitting with the car off, nothing happened, the rear footwell lighting would not illuminate. Thought something wasnt right. I then turned the ignition on, and now they illuminate. So they operate in the reverse of how they should. Engine off and they are off, engine on and now they are on.

I then thought what happens if i run a small wire between the two lives so that the rear footwell lighting was running off both of them. Thought it was a long shot but at worst it could just blow a fuse.. Yup, fuse blown so I had to faff about in the passenger footwell changing the fuse.

Incidentally I learned not to leave an open stanley knife on the passenger seat then go round to the passenger side and momentarily put your hand on the seat while you crouch down

post-34566-0-03915800-1422552231_thumb.j

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ouch, that looks a sore one.

have you got a multi meter?

you need to find out what those lines are doing, if its anything like the boot its not a simple job until you know whats what.

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nope dont have a multi metre

when i wired in my boot lights it was a relatively simple job and they seem to work as they should

i may still have some non canbus leds mixed in with the canbus leds in my front/rear courtesy lights. could this possibly be playing havoc with the new rear lighting?

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I've tried making sense of the Focus wiring diagram for the interior lights but just befuddled myself (not hard)

Think that a multimeter will do the trick to work out what's going on - have a sneaky feeling that the courtesy lamp circuit could be working with one permanent live then switches the neutral instead.

Hopefully that will make everything clearer - if so and you need a hand to re-do your wiring just ask, my wiring head just needs some time to wake up again this evening :rolleyes:

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On the boot you would have probably spliced in to both the wires to the existing light, what's interesting is that both wires are live, when you open the boot one wire turns off which turns on the bulb. The front light might be the same. I'll take a meter to mine tomorrow and see if I can work it out

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that appears to be exactly whats happening, just took a meter to all three connectors

ill number them 1 to 3, were 1 and 2 are together on one connector and 3 is on the other, pin 1 has two wires joined to it.

3 = always on 12v

2 = ground but not quite, it is connected to something that's earthed but its creating a lot of resistance

1 = when doors closed (lights off) this is live 12v

1 = when doors open (lights on) this is dead (im going to go back and see if earth continuity changes when doors open an close)

so, if you fancy a test run, connect a bulb to pin 1 and 3 and see what happens, in the case of the boot it turns on and off, it should be the same for this, worst case you blow another fuse! its important there is resistance between the two though, like a bulb or led

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I think thats basically what i tried that blew the fuse

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From your destription of what you did i think you tried connecting your green red and the live off the LEDs all together? and the negative to someplace else?

thats not going to work, i think you need to connect the negative wire to your Green circle and the positive to your Red circle, with the door closed, the two positive connections cancel each other out....i think :)

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i'll give it a go. have to be tomorrow now though. I'm running outa 12a fuses. got plenty of all the others. i thought it had to be earthed to an actual earth before so i contected the live to both of those and earthed elsewhere

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Pretty sure it's a ground switched circuit? That wire that "floats" then goes to ground will be the switched ground.

I'm pretty sure the boot light follows that concept, the live wire is always live, it is the ground that is switched through the lock mech.

You can get a cheap £5 DMM from eBay which will be suitable for low voltage (just do not use it for 240v, you may well blow it up in your hand).

(Looking at the wiring diagram, it appears very much to be ground switched - the "Interior Lights" section on the electronic box has a courtesy lights ground connection).

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  • 2 weeks later...

i think you need to connect the negative wire to your Green circle and the positive to your Red circle, with the door closed, the two positive connections cancel each other out....i think :)

You beauty mate!

Just tried what you said (albeit a bit later than I wanted to) and it worked perfectly

post-34566-0-36512900-1423699701_thumb.j

I now have rear footwell lighting up and running in sync with the rest of the interior lighting

post-34566-0-23193300-1423699757_thumb.j

post-34566-0-63040900-1423699773_thumb.j

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