Adding a switch for the door courtesy lights - 2000 4wd Xtracb

I do a bunch of camping in my 2000 Tacoma, which means that the doors are open a lot when we're in camp. The dome lights have an on/off switch, but there are courtesy lights (red) on each door that are on whenever either door is open. I'd like to add a switch to control these.

My Hanes manual doesn't call out the specific wire that I need (that I can find).

Anyone have a quick trick to find the right wire? Ideally I'd catch it somewhere in the dash area so a single switch would control the lights in both doors. This is on a 2000 4x4 Xtracab SR5 V6.

Is it asking too much for a pic of the wire (coming out of whatever harness it comes out of to take even more of the guesswork out of it for me?

Thanks!

2-29 Edit: adding pic -

 

Yeah I hate having those lights on as well with the doors open.

 

Bump in hopes of some info here...

 

This would be a great mod - hope something materializes.

 

I think it would be quicker to just pull the bulbs.

 

Yep, that'd be quicker. But I want these on when I open my door in the city...plus, I like stuff to still work

 

Just pull the kick panel. The door switch and the wire are right there. I put an unobtrusive push button, "push on-push off" right on the panel. It's about 1/2" square.
Put in a fuel pump kill switch while I was there.

 

Does that only switch the driver side, or both sides? And, did you tap into the circuit in the can or in the door, and then run wires back to the can?

Last - any chance of a pic or info on how you determined wire colors?

 

It enables or disables the factory door switch. The factory door switch turns on both courtesy lights.
Unscrew the threshold or scuff plate as Toyota calls it then pull the panel toward the rear. You are now looking at the door switch. It has one wire, cut your switch into that wire. I don't remember the color, it was 17 years ago this month. I put a switch on both sides for convenience.

 

Awesome. Will check it out and report back with the build out and pics (this weekend)?

 

These be the colors for a 2000, failure impossible now.

 

Yeah, I just ran down to the parking lot and pulled off the kick panel and sure enough, there's the single wire going to the courtesy switch. Time to go grab a switch and wire it in. Thanks all.

 

Why dont you want the lights on? If its because of power consumption then put leds in there.

 

There's the power draw, which I could partially solve with LEDs, but I also don't want red lights shining in camp all the time.

 

Wire switch into the switch that tells them to turn on anyways. Front of the door compresses it when closed. Wires are easily accessible by removing the footwell panels. This will eliminate the chime and all other lights that come on when door is opened not just the ones in door.

 

Got my switches today (man, that shipping on Amazon was slow this order). At any rate, not time to install before the weekend, but will hopefully get to this in a few days and post pics when done.

 

Well, two months later, finally done. Had quite a time trying to find illuminated switches that would work in this circuit (that would be illuminated only when the courtesy lights were on) but finally relented and just went for switching the circuit. Total actual mod time ~90 minutes.

Here's the process, for anyone interested, it's pretty straight forward...

First, you need to remove the plastic door sill, which is just four screws. After that, you can remove the kick panel by pulling toward the back of the truck - it's held on by a couple of clips (no fasteners). At that point, if you look down at the lower opening, you'll see a single red wire that goes to the door switch. That's the one you'll want to cut into, extend the wires, and switch.



The switches I went with were these small-ish 16mm round push button switches from amazon, since they are small, and I don't have a ton of room on my dash (where I thought I'd put them), and I thought it'd be cool if they illuminated red when the doors were open (and the switches were in the on position). Turns out I could never get them wired to light only when in the on position, but being stainless, they still look nice. I also found a better mounting location, IMO.


These switches also come with the wiring harness you see, which makes connecting them much easier (the leads on the back of these switches are tiny), and also makes removal of the kick panel easier in the future, since you can disconnect the harness from the switch and then set the panel aside.

So, the next step was mounting. Originally I'd planned to put these on my dash, likely above the clutch start cancel but as I looked more closely I realized that it'd be nice to put them in the kick panel, on the "45 degree angle" facing the cab. So, out with the 3/8" drill bit (fit the 16mm perfectly) to drill a hole about an inch down from the top. The switch then went in, and I used the rubber seal on the back of the kick panel as a sort of locking washer for the nut.



Then, it's as simple as soldering up the switch (in the case of this switch, the blue and green wires from the harness are the switched leads), activating some shrink tubing over the connections, and putting everything back together. And of course, you have to repeat for each side of the cab, since each door switch independently controls all courtesy + cabin lights. When it's all done, these small switches are pretty nice looking on the kick panel - noticeable enough that someone might say "hey, what's that for?" but not intrusive in any way, and not easily tripped.



I'm still hopeful that I'll be able to figure out a way to get the light in the switch to work. @fergyz has been pretty cool in trying this on his side as well, and suggested a diode to put the switch light in series with the courtesy lights. Didn't work for me when I threw the diode in there, but I've got some electrical engineer buddies who I'm going to have take a look and see if we can't figure something.

Anyway, simple fun tweak that will make me a bit more "at ease" when camping.