Installed ambient light in overhead console (1 Viewer)

[Hoosier Daddy]

My last several vehicles have had ambient light shining down from the overhead console when driving at night. It's a small thing, but it's a nice feature to have. My 2010 Land Cruiser did not come with this feature however.

No problem. Installing an LED is easy and cheap, and the results are awesome. Here's a quick walk-through.

1. Open the sunglasses holder and you'll see two small screw covers. Open these with a small flat head screw driver and remove the screws with a Philips screwdriver.

2. Pull downward on the rear (part closer to the rear of the truck) of the overhead console. There are two little snap-in connectors under the rear section and two hooks in the side near the windshield.

3. Disconnect the wiring harness.

4. Remove the little screws holding the cover on the back of the overhead console, then pull off that cover. You'll need to disconnect the little wiring harness that goes from the Homelink module down to the circuit board There are you clips on this connector. Just use a small flat screwdriver to pry up on the little ears at the top of the connector and it will pull out.

5. With the cover removed, now you can pull off the circuit board. Pay attention to the orientation of the parts Asa you pull it off.

6. There is one screw holding on the panel of "SPOT, DOOR, ON/OFF" buttons. Remove that screw and pull out the panel of buttons.

7. Now hold that panel in your hand and notice the little black legs that protrude through the face of the console. Looking at them from the outside, you would think these were sensors or something important, but don't actually do anything useful - until now. They are hollow and the perfect size to place an LED.

8. Drill a small (roughly 2mm) hole in the center of one of those legs, and place an LED into the hole. (See photo). I used one these 2mm round top LEDS from eBay in Warm White, but red may also be a good choice. I did not push the LED all the way into the hole, as I wanted it slightly recessed.

 

[Hoosier Daddy]

9. Put the console parts back together. Make sure all the pieces fit flush before replacing the screws and make sure you put all the screws back in. Leave the wiring pigtail hanging out by where the main wiring harness snaps into the console.

10. Now we get to wire this up. I figured I would tap into the wiring that goes to the sunroof switch illumination, but that's impossible since everything is contained on the circuit board. This means we need to use the main wiring harness of the truck. I simply stripped off about 1/3" of the wire on the pigtails and inserted them into the back of the truck-side harness plug.

You'll see on one side of the plug there is a green wire, which is the 4th pin from the right. This is shown well in the photo above. That's the wire that gets power when the lights are turned on.

On the opposite side of the plug there is a white wire with a black stripe on the 1st position on the right. See photo below. That's the ground.

It is easier to insert the wires when the console is actually plugged in and hanging by the harness. I was using a piece of galvanized wire to suspend the console before I figured that out.

After firmly inserting the wires, I wrapped some electrical tape around them to keep them secure.

11. Put the console back in position and replace the two screws. Done!

 

[Sandroad]

Nifty to have a light there! Good detective work on the location and wiring too. However, I'm a bit unsettled about your connections. I wonder if those are tight enough to resist working loose in the normal vibration/bouncing/heat-cool cycling of a LC? Those may be loose connections and loose wires waiting to happen. Probably better to do a regular wire splice into the appropriate wires and be certain.

 

[Hoosier Daddy]

I appreciate your concern, and sorry to unsettle you.

The current risk is that I lose my little LED light if the wiring comes loose. The benefit is that I made zero alteration to factory wiring harness. Risk is much, much smaller than benefit for me. The two pigtail wires are buddy-taped to the wire that each mates with on the harness plug.

Of course, if anyone wanted to try this but didn't feel comfortable with this type of connection, I'd suggest looking into these Posi-Tap connectors.

 

[Hoosier Daddy]

If you look at that last photo, with the console reinstalled, you"ll notice you can see the little light shining. After testing this some more, it turns out that this light is mildly distracting when driving. Even though the LED is recessed, the light still reflects off the plastic around the LED.

To make this mod work better, that glare needed to be stopped. I took some flat black paint and colored in the recessed area. Now the light shining toward the driver's eyes is no brighter than the rest of the console switch lighting but the amount of light shining downward is unchanged.