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Thursday, August 12, 2010

Lights part 2

As I have mentioned, I got some lighting goodies a couple of days ago. Last night I got around to installing my dome light and trunk light. The whole theme of my car is going to be black, chrome, and red, so I bought red interior lights. I took the liberty of taking some installation pictures. However, because I didn't have a third hand to take pictures while installing, this step by step will be sort of vague.
Close your door, and test to see if you dome light works. Working? Good.
Pop off the plastic light cover. To do this, take a very flat screwdriver or, in my case, a letter opener and begin prying at the sides of the cover. Gently pry the right side, left side, front, and back. The cover isn't THAT delicate, but better to be safe than sorry. After the cover is popped off, you will see a transparent lightbulb, pull it straight out. Rubber/Vinyl gloves should be worn when handling light bulbs. Simply just place your new light in! (Displayed in picture) Snap the cover back.
Now, to some people the trunk light is the hardest to swap out. Usually you would think you swap it out by opening the trunk. However, as many people have complained, the light bulb gets hot really fast. Making the swap a PITA. Well, little old me just felt that it wasn't the smartest way to approach it. Since the trunk light only turns on when you open the trunk, why not swap the lights when the trunk is closed? How? That's right... I lowered the two back seats, and climbed into the trunk with a flash light of course.
Sorry for the crooked photo, I was lazy to flip it in Photoshop and I was very contorted in the trunk lol. To pop out the light for the trunk, you only need to work one side of the cover. See the top of the cover? There is a little slot, small enough for a flat edged tool to fit in and pry open.
The light bulb is again the same light bulb as the dome light. However, I must warn you, it was tricky getting the light bulb out of this socket. I ended up disconnecting the harness and brought the whole light with the cover outside where I had more light to work. You could make the swap without disconnecting the harness if you wanted. Also, because the trunk light is not technically on, you won't have to worry about short circuits or a hot light bulb.
LED plugged in place, swap is complete. Now just place the light back the same way you took it out.

Well that is it for the Do-it-yourself. Simple right? It is literally just changing the light bulbs. I did find it necessary to post the pictures though, because for myself, I have heard how easy it was to install, but because I couldn't find any installation pictures for the trunk lighting, it took a couple more minutes for me to figure out. Results? It is sort of hard to see, but here you go.

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