A new touch I thought I'd try with my car... Under-dash lighting. I didn't go for the properly wired in ones, I went for a set of cheap, stick on, cigarette lighter powered ones.
I was faced with a dilemma; how was I going to put the lights in without having loads of wire hanging around, making my car look scruffy.
I decided that a good plan would be to remove the centre console panel and make it so the cigarette lighter plug for the lights could come out of the ash tray to plug in, and be hidden away again in the cigarette lighter when I didn't need them on. Ingenious or what eh? So I set to it...
I started by unscrewing my centre panel screws and pulled it out. I then set about trying to get the plug to go through the hole behind the ash tray. This was obviously never going to happen... I had to unscrew the plug, push the wired half through the hole and then screw it back up on the side facing out on the centre console panel. I also ended up taking half the ash tray apart to even fit half through!
Next I set about sticking the lights in place. There were two for each footwell. I managed to find suitable places for the drivers footwell. However, when I came back to my car later to check how they looked at night, one had slipped, so I pushed it back on.. Unfortunately in the wrong place. So now it points too low down, meaning I need to sort it in the morning (as you'll see in the pictures). The passenger footwell was harder to find a place where the bulbs will actually shine onto the floor. But I only managed to get them to stick facing up into the glovebox. This means that you can't really see the passenger footwell lights that well
I tied the excess wire together and masking taped it up near the lights so it didn't dangle down.
Once I'd sorted their positions, i had to sort out putting the wire behind the centre console to hide it. I managed to bundle up all the wire and then masking taped it to the back of the inside of the centre console panel. I screwed the panel back in again and it was job done!
Overall I'm quite pleased, considering they only cost me about £3 off Amazon!
Pictures to follow.
Rhys
Before:
The lights:
The work:
After (needs sorting again):