Help locating dome light wires

I bought some LED strips from autozone to add some light to the footwells in my 02 Xtra cab. I'm wanting to wire them so they will turn on with the dome light. I found lots of threads for this mod on the newer 2nd gen tacomas but couldn't find anything for 01-04s. If anyone had any information or can help me, please fill me in!

Here's a thread for a 2014 that explains which wires he tapped into and how he wired everything up. This is what I'm looking to do!
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/304009-easiest-place-tap-dome-light-wire.html

 

The wire should be light green with a black stripe. I just installed my new head unit last week and needed to open up the A-pillar area to run the microphone wire used for Bluetooth.

So the wires run from the dome light, through the A-pillar, then all the way down to the drivers side foot panel where a bunch of wires are.

 

The dome light wires are black and black /white. Take your left kick panel off and look on the firewall side of the fuse box over against the wallyou will see a plug with 3 wires black , black/white and white and blue.

 

So this is on the driver side A pillar? And the wire you speak of is the hot wire?

This is conflicting with the information above. Maybe you have different color wires? Have you traced them up to the dome light, by chance?

 

I'm not sure if it's black or black/white that is hot, if you have a test light get a good ground and test those two wires, whichever one that lights the test light is hot. I just installed a lighted ignition switch ring and tapped into those two wires as described for power and ground so the ring would come on with the dome light. My truck is a 02 taco trd 4x4. And yes they go up the pillar to the dome light. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks bud! I think I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

 

Hmmmm. Interesting. Mine were light green running along the a-pillar. I'm sure those are the dome light wires because I spliced into them to do a mod where the map lights come on with the dome light when the doors are opened.

Weird.
Oh well, good luck & let us know how it went.

 

It might be because yours is a 2003. I've heard that year is a little different than the 01, 02 and 04 when it comes to the dome lights. I know we can't plug a basic LED into the dome, or map lights and get them to work, but I think you can with the 03's... I could be completely wrong on that though. I'll be sure to let you guys know what happens.

 

Sheepdog I have the exact same taco as you my dome light wires are black and black/white a simple mod for your dome light is to get the dome and map light unit out of a 2nd gen 4runner it will bolt right in to the original spot where the taco map lights are,I tapped into the dome light on the ceiling. I ran the wires between the headliner and the cab ceiling now I have a front dome light and a center dome light you can have both on both off front on or center on and everything works as it should. I did a write up on here 3or4 months ago on the dome light mod.

 

No shit?? I'm going to look into that right now! Thanks bud!

 

Nice!
Yea, it's really cool to have a little extra light in there specially in the dbl cabs. That dome light by itself just isn't enough to see.

 

UPDATE: What about locating a wire that gets power with the dash lights? So basically I could wire the LED strips to that wire so at night whenever I turn on my running/headlights the LEDs would stay on and illuminate the footwell. Hope that makes sense.

 

Not sure if your truck is like mine but if you have a small light that's in your ash tray, you could tie it into that or if you have a glove box light, that might work too.

Both of these should come on when the lights are turned on. That way you'd have power when the lights are on.

 

The black wire in the driver A-pillar is constant hot. Black/white is the door open ground. If you wire something to these, it will only be on when the door is open. I tried finding an ignition-powered ground in there, but couldn't.

 

I completely forgot about that little ash tray light! I think I'll give that one a shot.

 

I used 12v led modules for the sign industry. I put one module under the driver side dash and one under the pass side dash. I tapped into the door jamb switch but I don't remember the wire colors since it was a year ago. I also yank the stock dome light bulb and put a module in its place, just wiring the leads to the terminals that hold and power the stock bulb. Bright as hell and they still have the delay/dim function when the door is shut. Mines an '01.

 

this is what i tried to do but i was unable to get any light. After endless searching, this seemed like it should work, but it did not. So like a frustrated noob i just tapped all of the 5 wires in the piller and got nothing. any ideas how i could possibly make this work. feeling very inadequate and angry with my first mod.

 

About to attempt to add the map light mirror with no door switch to a 96 taco. Any advice if I don’t want it to only work when the door is open? Can I ground it to the bolts that it mounts to?