Ambient Lighting

[Ben...]

Right so I've seen a lot of people posting about not being able to find bulb holders in their footwells or not being able to get bulbs to work. And I've seen others asking where they can get the actual Ford ambient lighting from etc etc

So in my Mk6 zetec (metropolis) I wired in blue footwell neons to the lights [so they would come on when the lights were on]

Yes as you are thinking, it did look awful

Now seeings the theme of my car is Black & Red I wanted to install red footwell lighting as red is pretty subtle and I thought it would look quite smart

I only wanted the lights to come on when the doors were opened

So I wired it to my interior light

This meant that when the doors were opened/the car was unlocked, all the lights I'd installed would fade on and visa versa

Here's how I did it

Equipment Required

LED strips

Black 5 Amp Wire

Red 5 Amp Wire

Soldering iron

Lead free solder

Heatshrink

Heatgun

Double sided tape

Electrical tape

Multimeter

Spade Connections (male & female)

I already had my pillars and roof lining out of the car as these are being worked on at the moment

I bought

Some of this

It can be cut in to 5 cm lengths (3 LEDs)

LED Strip

Some of this

Black Wire

Red Wire

Step 1

Determine which wires to tap in to on the back of the interior light

There are 2 plugs

One plug has just 1 wire going in to it (green/purple) - this is a constant live

The other plug has 2 wires going in to it (yellow/grey & black/yellow)

The yellow/grey is earthed when the doors are open (I believe) [labelled '1' on plug]

The black/yellow is constant earth [labelled '2' on plug]

The 2 wires you want are the green/purple & yellow/grey

Step 2

Solder red wire on to +ve terminal of LED strip

Solder black wire on to -ve terminal of LED strip

(If using the same LED strip as me, solder both wires to one end of the LED strip. Don't worry about the terminals on the other end)

Isolate all connections with heatshrink

Step 3

Cut LED strip to required length

And stick where you want it

Step 4

Feed wires through to near the interior light connector

Step 5

After repeating this as many times as necessary

Connect all red wires to a male spade connector

Within this spade connector also connect a 3-4" piece of red wire

Connect a female spade connector to the other end of the 3-4" piece of red wire

Step 6

Connect all the black wires to a male spade connector

Within this spade connector also connect a 3-4" piece of black wire

Connect a female spade connector to the other end of the 3-4" piece of black wire

Step 7

Cut a 3-4" piece of black wire and connect a male spade connector to one end and a female spade connector to the other end

This will connect to the double plug in to connection 2

Step 8

Connect all 3 female spade connectors to matching connections on interior light

Here are some pictures of how I connected it

I put 1 LED strip in each footwell

1 LED strip in each of the rear cubby holes

And 1 LED strip in the 'secret compartment'

Here are some videos

Hope this helps someone