2000-2007 Courtesy Lamp Install Guide

From Taurus Car Club Maintenance and Modification Wiki

Here is a simple and easy guide on how to install the foot well courtesy lamps in your Ford Taurus that were removed by Ford to save a few pennies! I hope this helps somone. If you have received this document outside its home territory and have questions, visit the Taurus Car Club of America for any questions you may have. Items you need for the project are:

• Two 194 bulb sockets and bulbs
• Roll of Vinyl electrical tape
• Pliers
• Scissors or another cutting item
• Wire crimpers and/or strippers
• 16-14guage wire (to make extensions)
• 16-14guage butt joints
• 16-14guage t-taps

1. You need to aquire some bulb holders from an older donor vehicle. Call a local junk yard, make a post or go to a junk yard and pull off your own. They look like this..

2.Prepare your new holders. What probably want to do at this point is strip off 1⁄4 of an inch of insulation off each end to expose some wire. Please note, if the tape around your wire is sticky and bothers you, remove it and recover it with fresh new Vinyle tape for a more professional install. With your wires exposed, put on your butt joint. These should be red and are available from Lowes or any auto parts store. Crimp one on each end of your wires. You should now have something that looks like this..

3.Once your butt connections are on, you are ready to add some wire and extend the connection. You will want approximately 18 inches for the passenger side and about 6 feet for the drivers side. This will give you plenty of wire to work with and you will have some left over. Now, crimp on the wire you just cut to each of your sockets. You should now have 2 sockets. One socket with 2 – 6 foot wire lengths and 1 socket with 2 – 18 inch wire length. So far so good!

4.Once all that is done, you are ready to install these bad boys in your car. Easiest way is to open the passenger door and remove the kick plate/door sill. That would be the plastic moulding that you probably hit when putting your feet in the car. Start by pulling it up from under the dash. Pull hard, but be gentle. You will hear some pops as the pins release. This might be difficult and require a lot of tugging, but it’s ok. Don’t he-man the thing and you won’t break it. Once your moulding is up, and you push back the carpet you will see a large bundle of wire inside a black tube. Pull open the black tube and this is what you will see..

5. Of course your items will vary but it should look very similar. Now, inside this mess of wires, find a small BLACK wire with LIGHT BLUE stripe. Be carefull! There are two other wires in this bundle that are bigger and are light blue with a black stripe. You DO NOT want to use those wires. The best thing to do and make sure you have the right wire is use a light up tester that you can get at any autostore for around 5 bux. This allows you to test the wire without cutting or hurting the car or yourself. Once you have found that wire, you will need to use a T-Tap to tap into it. If you are an advanced electrician or hobbyiest – use whatever connection you want to achieve the same thing. For everyone else, use the T-Taps. Close the T-Tap around the wire and use your pliers to squeeze it for a nice tight connection. It will lock together and you are set. Now, connect the T connector to one of your wires from the sockets. To make this easy, your sockets have two colored wires. One black and one black with a light blue stripe. Use the black with a light blue stripe. This keeps things simple and helps you know which wire is what. Crimp the T onto the wire and use some Vinyle tape around the conection to give a clean look and to keep everything snug. Once that is complete, connect it to the tap. It is really easy. Slide it in really good and it will be a nice tight fit. Take some Vinyle tape and put it around this connection as well. Again, this is to prevent any problems by keeping the connections from coming apart by chance and to preven the wires from shorting anything out if they become dislodged (slim chance but better safe than sorry). Your tap should look like this..

6. In the photo on step 5, you see your first tap to the left – which is now taped up. The right tap that is not taped up is for the drivers side lamp. Once you have completed the passenger side tap you will still have one wire left. Don’t worry about that right now we will get to it. On the passenger side, there is a bracket that holds this light socket. It is located to the far right, right above the kick plate moulding you removed earlier. It is under the glove box, to the far right and looks like this..

It is hard to see, so you will need to put your hand up there and feel for a bracket with a hole (literally) in it. Once you find it, place your socket inside it and twist to lock it in place. This is the tricky part. You will have to turn your lamp socket a few times until it finally goes in (see picture in step 7 to help you). Once in, lock it in place by twisting. Also note, you want the bulb facing the door, not into the car.

7. Congratulations on making it this far! Now for the drivers side. Same thing applies here. Find the bracket. It is located off center towards the right side of the driver (if you are sitting in the seat) – towards the center console. It is under the dash and again, you willhave to use your hands to feel for the bracket with a hole in it. It looks like this..

Once you find it, install your socket. You want to install the socket so the bulb faces to the LEFT (faces towards the driver door). Twist to lock the socket in place. Once complete, rout your wires through the console just behind the coin holder. They should drop into the footwell on the otherside. This might be tricky for some, but it should take no more than a couple tries if you have problems.

8. Once that is complete you need to route your wires up and behind the glove box for safety and aesthetic reasons. You need to flip your glovebox out and down. There should be two tabs on each side that you press IN and then pull the glove box forward and out. It should now fall to the floor but still stay attached. You now have access to tape up your wires as seen here..

Route the wires up and through to the rear of the glove box. Here it would be wise to wrap up the wire in Vinyl tape to keep things nice. Choose a bundle of wire you see behind there and tape your bundle to it. It does not have to be exact. It is meant to secure only. Now, continue running your wires to the right side of the car where your passenger side bulb is installed.

9. With your wires now over on the same side, you need to tap your power wire again for the driver bulb. Same instructions as before, HOWEVER – you are going to tap the newly installed bulb wire instead. This will prevent any problems and keeps down un necessary cutting of factory wires. So, if you are confused, the black wire you used to tap into the cars factory wire – this is the wire you are now tapping into. Like a daisy chain. Trim any excess wire you don’t need. So, attach your tap to the black wire and and you should have something like this..

Attach your T to your drivers power cord and use some Vinyl tape on it to keep the install neat and clean. Attach it to your tap and WOILA! You now have power. Make sure to use some Vinyl on all your taps to keep it clean and professional looking. Congratulations, you now have power to both of your bulbs!

10. But what about the other two wires? Exactly. If you followed the instructions, you should have 2 black wires not connected to anything. You need to strip approx. 1 inch of insulation off each end to expose the wire. Twist both of them together. Now, attach them to the grounding point located just below your passenger light socket where you removed your kick plate earlier – here..

Once your have attached your two wires to the grounding bolt, tighten it up and test things out. At this point, your power save features have kicked in and your lights are not on. Close all doors to reset it and open your passenger door. If you did everything correctly, your lights should be on! Now, pull back your carpet and reinstall your kickplate – you are FINISHED!

So, how does it feel to do something DANGEROUS? Neat huh. Now you can see your floor boards when you get into your car. What was Ford thinking?

Thanks to user DrinkMore for his contribution