Fit Additional Boot Lighting (Slightly Easier Version)

April 7, 2013

Following installation of new, additional boot lighting i thought I'd share my experience because it is possible to do without ripping all the side panels out the back of the car.

I add that i am only sharing what the master (Anchorman) shared with me....

First, choose a light that suits. Mine came all the way from the States curtesy of Anchs. You could get one from a scrapy. The keys points i am going to cover here is the connectivity. This is also assuming you wish to add lights to both sides of the boot.

1. Wiring the lights
Here is a bad drawing of what you wish to achieve:

To run a cable from one side of the boot to the other, take the light access panels off each side in the boot. Remove the boot tray by removing the clips shown below. There are 4 along the back and 2 in the tray itself. These are little grip clips so you just need a bit of brute force. Don't twist them to one side, pull them straight up.

Once the tray is out, take off edging between the tray and the door. This whole thing just pulls straight up. Again a bit of brute force is required, but only pull it straight up. don't lift one side too high or it will bend the clip on the other side. Feed your cable from the boot through the corner shown below (picture is with everything back in place but you can see where it goes):

Put your hand through the open light access panel and reach down to grab the cable. Using the other end of the same cable, do the same on the other side. Tape the cable onto the metal within the boot.

2. Fitting the lights

Take a look at Anchorman's post (here) about cutting holes for the lights. Here's where i put my lights. Using the template in the other post I marked the place on the trim and simply cut it with a sharp Stanley knife. Just take your time.

I also connected the lights in the same way as Anchs although I couldn't find my crimping tool so used pliers instead. Not as pretty but it works.

3. Connecting the new lights to the current wiring loom
Behind the right light access panel you will see a small wiring loom. Mine had already been opened as this is where the power for my tow bar is drawn. Open up the loom to expose the cables. you are looking for two cables, one pink and one blue. From what i could tell the pink is always powered and the blue one is switched to ground. To determine this i first wired up the pink cable then grounded the other to the chassis. With this the lights were on permanently.

IMPORTANT. There are about 4 blue cables in the loom. It important you get the right one. you are looking for the blue one WITHOUT ANY other colours on it. You will need to look carefully. The others in the loom have either gold or silver flecks on the cable some 50-100mm apart. They are not obvious so look carefully.

Once you have determined which wire is which, connect them to your new light wires. I used Scotch blocks (cos i'm from Scotchland!):

Be sure and sit inside the car with the boot door closed when connecting the power up otherwise you will get small sparks.

Put it all back together then sit back and admire your handiwork!