Well I did this almost a week after getting my Sol and never gave a second thought to how someone one else might like more interior lighting until I saw anther post asking how to do just that.

So here is what I did with a basic how to, I'm not going to go into all the details because its a simple mod with the exception of the switch which I have a diagram for and what not.

What your going to need is:
Soldering gun and solder (If you want to do it my way)
two long runs of 12-14 gauge wire
one short run of 12-14 gauge wire
mirror with built in lights (I used my old one from my lebaron)
knowledge of how to remove your interior panels
round eye connector for ground

Alright this is really pretty simple, lets begin.

First off lets remove the doom light itself its just a single screw holding it in, once that's off you should see the back or the switch which looks something like this here.


This is where I made my connections so that the switch will control both dome lights if you don't feel comfortable modifying it or don't care about shutting the new one off or don't need to go ahead and crimp onto the wires instead.

Now the wire with the BLUE mark on it is our 12+ constant power, we need to splice onto this wire here to get our positive.

The part with the RED mark needs to be soldered onto if you want the switch to control both lights, otherwise crimp or solder onto the GRN/RED wire. This connection supplies the switched ground for the door open aspect of our light

Now if the mirror your using has a map light feature like I'm sure it does you can pick that up under the trim just about the mirror on the windshield, I picked mine up from one of the bolts that hold the visors in place.

Once you've made your connections at the dome light you need to run your wires over to the new mirror (Pretty simple)

Once you have all of them there I drilled a small hole to slip the wires thou so it looked nicer and ran some wire loom over them to dress them up.

Now since my mirror was originally designed for a switched positive not switched ground like it is now I had to reverse a few wires to make it all work the way I wanted it too.

Once its all done it should look something like this.


Hope that helps someone out, like I said I did that right after I got the car and have loved it ever since, it adds so much more light because you don't have the seats blocking most of it anymore, and the map lights really come in handy because it doesn't block your view out of the back window at night.



Modified by nocturnaldragon at 10:40 AM 7/17/2005

 

nice little writup

 

so it just hangs there?

 

What just hangs there?

The mirror attaches to the stock location on the windshield, and the wires yes hang down I dont have the wire loom on them in the pic I added that after I took them.

The other wire on the left is for my antenna/control for my alarm system the big loop one is for my radar detector also mounted to the trim for convience.

 

nice write up...but u could always jsut get the maplights that go in the door handles....

 

Can I See Pics of the light on plz

 

One could do that, but I think that would be more of a distration while driving at night because its off to the side, not to mention there not the cheapest or easist things to get your hands on. I also dont think the wiring is in the doors for those easier you have to add all that unless you steal it from the power locks.