About to install interior lighted door handles + exterior handle lights - Wiring?

[Sobek]

Hey everyone,

I ordered a set of interior door handles from a 2001 740 that have the lighting built in. Those have arrived, and any day now I should have the LED strips I need to get my exterior door handles illuminated too.

Now I know I'll have to tap the courtesy lights for the exterior handle LEDs, but as for the interior handles I'm guessing I can splice into the wires running to the window up/down switches on all 4 doors? What I'm wondering is, has anyone else done this and taken photos of what wires to splice and where? That's my only concern - I want to get this right the first go and some pictures of exactly what wires to tap into would be perfect.

That way, the interior lights are on so long as the headlights are on (as the window switches only come on with headlights right?) and the exterior handles will illuminate when I unlock the car or flick on the interior lights. There are some rough guides out there on doing these mods, and the install aspect is well covered but no one ever shows what specific wires they spliced into or anything - that's all I want to confirm.

Appreciate the help :cool

[David325e]

What about the interior footwell lights. The ones on the front/rear doors that come on with the middle light switch. That would be on inside when you turn the door off, and would go off/on with the courtesy lights. Should be easier to tap into, too. Without an EWD here, brown or black for ground. Something, probably yellow or red, possibly striped or dashed for the power.

[IcemanBHE]

PM Bandittwo2 and ask him to post here what he did.

It wasnt hard.

Footwell lights is what I was thinking...

[Sobek]

Thanks guys, will do.

So I guess it would be best to tap the footwell lights for the exterior handle illumination, and tap the window switch lights for the interior handle illumination. Seems pretty straight forward I suppose!

[E38bimmer]

I did this a few months back with one led drilled in place under the door handle I taped the courtesy lights on the doors, I wanted to do the inner door handles but the LEDs I had are way to bright and looked crazy bright at night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YeY7Tq483Y

[purplecty]

I did this a few months back with one led drilled in place under the door handle I taped the courtesy lights on the doors, I wanted to do the inner door handles but the LEDs I had are way to bright and looked crazy bright at night

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YeY7Tq483Y (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YeY7Tq483Y)

I like that!

[E38bimmer]

Thanks

[Sobek]

OK! Just got started tonight, had an hour to spare so figured I'd give it a go. So far I've only got the front passenger (that's the left side, the driver, for most of you) side interior lighted door handle in... what a task that was! I think I need to pick up some more door trim push-clips just in case, as 1 or 2 ended up breaking a bit. But I spliced the interior handle LED in and it looks great, no pics yet though.

Found a few oddities as I was working on it though... Firstly, any ideas what these two phantom connectors are for? They weren't hooked up when I pulled the door panel off, and they don't connect to each other, so I have no idea what they do;

http://imageshack.us/a/img87/5265/lights1u.jpg

And then, the PCB that the green 'Nokia' speaker wire goes to (what is that speaker anyway, is it for the carphone?) has a loose pin... Just look at that thing!

http://imageshack.us/a/img22/7207/lights2u.jpg

And lastly, this fell out of my door panel somewhere as I was putting it back together. What's an 'E 38 TV' paper slip doing in my front door?!

http://imageshack.us/a/img72/500/lights3.jpg

Weird stuff. I tried to install the exterior door handle LED's too but none of my drill bits would go through that door handle metal - tough stuff! Will continue with it tomorrow night. All I know is... someone has definitely been in this door before.

http://imageshack.us/a/img194/7461/lights4q.jpg

[Cangelo629]

Just thinking could one of those hanging connectors be for the power fold mirrors. and the onter for lighted handles if you ordered them from a option package .

[GSXRliterbikz]

Yellow connector is for something on the mirror. Possibly auto dim. The other could be the pinch strip.

Sent from my iPhone using BF.com

[Sobek]

Were interior and exterior lighted handles even an option on the 95/96 E38's?! My outside door handles do look a little worse for wear, perhaps they were replaced at some stage.

Still, it's very bizarre. I'll need to see if those same connectors are present in all of the doors I suppose. Does anyone have any pics of the interior/exterior handle lighting connectors from their own car for comparison?

[Sobek]

Just finished this mod tonight... wow, what a back breaker!! But everything went pretty smoothly - I had a few quick connects that didn't work and needed some re-doing (I wanted to solder everything but unfortunately my soldering iron picked this month to pack it in). I did both the interior and exterior lighting, and I have to see it looks stunning. I ended up going with white LED's for the exterior lights, but I may look at swapping them over to warm white or even just colouring the LED strips with a permanent marker or something at a later date, we'll see.

Without a doubt the hardest part was drilling the holes. Not because it was physically hard, but drilling holes in my precious... ouch! :nono Will post some pics up in the coming days, I'm way too nackered after a full day in this heat to go do photos.

Oh and I also found even more strange connectors in the rear doors. I know the ash tray and 'change container' things are backlit - I could see those wired up, but there were these other wires that were all hooked up and plugged in but had some kind of heat shrinked dead-end on them. I know they were for lighting as they matched the cable colour coding as both the ash tray and window switch backlights, but I couldn't identify the box they were plugged into and I didn't tear the door apart to find out. Weird stuff!

[jaredhaney]

Most BMWs come prewired for every nearly every option, I've got loose connectors that are factory in my e36, I can only imagine what an e38 is like. If everything worked before I wouldn't worry about all the wires and connectors you see.