So those of you with a 4.2 will have noticed that your front interior lamp does not come on when you open the doors. Adiing a wire can solve this.
The one downside being that switching on the front map light switch also switches on the rear; which is no biggie for me. If fact I would call it an upside - it's like a remote for the rear lamp.
First disconnect the vehicle battery and remove with a flat headed screwdriver both front and rear lamp covers. Remove the fixing screws.
Two screws in the rear lamp.
Three screws in the front lamp.
Next working from the windscreen end of the front lamp release the clips and lower the front lamp cluster. These are the clips.
Don't worry if you bend the ones closest to the seat, the three screws hold it in firmly.
Next fix a red/white wire to this point on the lamp. The solder won't take on the brass. Secure the wire with a dab of superglue for strain relief. Be carefull the connector you use cannot short to the brass fork top left of the photo.
In the car, swap the wires over in the plug. Use a jewellers screwdriver to remove the plastic cover and lever at the parts behind to release the wires.
Before
During
After
Add the wire to the conduit.
With both lamps removed the headlining can be lowered and the arm can be inserted up to the forearm. Shove all your cable up there as far as you can.
Grab it from the other side.
Make sure you leave enough slack for the existing cables to go back into the roof area toward the seatbelts when the lamp is refitted. I left more than this image shows in the headling area.
I took the front light unit out tonight to see if I had any extra wires up there for something exciting accessory-wise - but sadly not.
This mod looks good - but I wonder, on the side away from the on/off switch there is a divider and at the top of it, a wired contact. Would there have been a switch for Door/Off/On or would it be for a driver's map light - don't know where that switch would go..
Seems odd that the driver's cab is not lit when you open the door. I'll add this extra wire in and also get a LED cluster lamp to boost the output so I can see when I get in!
I don't think the 03 4.2 has an ignition-switch illuminated ring either does it.
I need to find the details for adding wiring for the Gentex mirror next - that was the harness I hoped to find up there.. This may help someone - it's for a Celica but I guess the RAV4 may be similar in some respects.
P
EDIT: In fact - looking at the complexity of the moulding, a switchless holder of that size (with the little pocket I know) seems to be brimming with potential fitment spaces that are not put on this base model unit. What is missing?
Also what's the black circle for inside the flap pocket space? On the reverse it's just a marked circle.
2nd EDIT: I've decided the extra switch position must be for the sunroof tilt/slide. Very disappointed my car hasn't got one, I thought they all had them up to 2005. Still looking for a 2005 XT-R to gain all the goodies!
I did this mod yesterday and having had the light units out at least twice to begin and then not having enough time I'd put them back.
[You say 'fix a red/white wire to this lamp..' and go on to use blue with yellow tracer!]
Anyway - removing the leads from the connector in the front (or rear) unit isn't as simple as it looks.
You have to pop up the little implant on top of the connector before the depress-to-release clip inside will depress. I spent about an hour with his thing, up in the air and only when I involved a bright torch to see where there was something in contact inside could I see where to insert the tiny screwdriver to press a catch down to liberate the wire and metal end. It's above the socket where the contact tab goes.
After that it was easy.
I cut the insulation off about 1" before the connector (RH one as used by Joylove) to mount my flying lead and removed the lead from the connector so the heat didn't distort the moulding. Also having unplugged the lead I slid a short piece of heat-shrink insulation past the joint I was making and then after soldering the wire on, slid that over the joint and shrank it. I remembered to post the new lead through the conduit first
The other light connector (rear pax light) was different again from the front one and also required a little insert moulding to be popped up before the connector would release. I only took the live out so that I could slide a piece of heat-shrink tubing along the wire. I stripped off a ¾" piece of insulation in the middle about 2" from the connector and soldered my flying lead to this, pulled the heat-shrink tube along and there we were, all lights lit and nice neat wiring in place. (I didn't disconnect the battery at all either during this mod)
Thanks for the pictorials Joylove, it was very helpful. I am still trying to work through in my head what the wiring is (now) and why I had to switch the feed at the front-light end. I did some drawings on the unit there to try and work out the brass connections which are buried in the moulding.
The lamp holders in the front are claw type, just a pair of bent brass cutouts from thin plate, into which the lamp clips (that's a very unusual lamp) and I can see that 3 or 4 bendings of those and a leg is bound to drop off - which it did so whilst I had the iron hot I soldered the lamp end to the brass otherwise it would be many ££ to Mr T for a complete new roof unit or a trip to the tat yard. The middle mount is far more practical - the brass ends are ENDS with a small hole in the middle to trap the lamp, not a floating claw waiting to break - once again how can two units be so different in one car?
I went out last night and the difference having the front cab lit when opening the door is amazing! I can see! It's got to be the most weird thing to decide by a manufacturer, to have NO cockpit lighting on opening a door.
I think footwell lighting will be the next move. I found a very good tutorial on TOC where someone used a strip of (red) LEDs to light his (dark) glovebox so I think that method would work well. I guess the feed to the o/h light can be tapped from pax footwell level (since it's switched already and assuming the feed is from the JB on the n/s?)
Link to the mod here
Credit to DavRav on that site for the write-up. It was on a 4.3 RAV but I'm sure it's eminently do-able on any model/year.
At night I have to turn on this 'map lights' when i'm looking for something, and always forget to turn it off. A diode will solve the 'problem' that all light comes on when you turn these 'map lights' on. I think that will be my next project. (the only mods i have done are the Scion T1808 radio with Scosche Bluefusion bluetooth. Both works perfectly).
Hi, I am in the UK and getting the bits together to do this 'mod' just thinking that Cable Snap Lock connectors will make the job simpler, see Ebay link below.
Hi
thanks for the great advice/post...
I did this mod on saturday, it's a much better car now....
Why on earth did Toyota leave out such a normal, everyday thing?!
cheers, John
That's why I encourage everyone to create a photo album on their profile page and upload the pictures there. Photobucket seems to lose the photos after a year or two.
Can someone point me to related wiring schematics? I was hoping that the OP will respond with photos, but if not the schematics may help. I haven't attempted any of the steps yet, but if I have to swap the cables it seems like knowing the pin outs and their associated signals will be a handy thing to have..
Took me a bit of time to figure this out with out photos. I figured I would update it with photos for those of us buying 4.2's nearly 20 years later.
Steps are brief as the details are still abvoe.
Pull 10A fuse from engine fuse box for Dome
Remove front map light housing and and unplug clipped power cord (press tab to release it)
Remove rear dome light and unclip power
Remove glove compartment and locate connector for dome/map lights - and then un plug it
Find the blue/orange wire and black/white wire
Remove the wire lock on top of the connector, then use a tiny tiny flathead screw driver to release the wires (this took me some time figure out)
Swap the wire positions of the blue/orange wire and black/white wire
Reinstall the wire and wire lock clip / plug connector back in / put glove box back in
With both map and dome lights uninstalled you can tug down on the headliner a bit to give some space
Feed 36" inches or more of wire via a coat hanger / snake/ ruler, etc to the front. Leave some extra on either end
In the dome - locate the red/white wire and splice the wire you just fed up front into it
In the map light take the end of your new wire and attach to here (I stripped mine wrapped it around the connector, and glued it in place)
Reinstall 10A fuse in engine fuse box
Test lights
Reinstall all the lights.
Now your map light will turn one with the rest of the Dome system. And the previous map light button will trigger the entire dome system when depressed (If you don't want that, install a diode).
In my case I took it a step further and retrofitted some small night vision friendly lights on switches into the sunglasses holder and wired them to the map light power. That way I can have lots of light when I enter the car, when I need lots of lights while in the car I press the map light button, and when I need just a bit of lights but dont want to kill my night vision I can switch on the driver or passenger LED lights.f
Where dome connector plugs is behind glove box.
Switching the blue/orange wire and the white/black wire to reverse the polarity of the map light to match dome system.
Where your new wire needs to go to tie into the dome system.
All 3 cabin lights on when the door opens (retrofitted with LEDs)
Custom amber/orange LED spots for night vision friendly map lights.
The plug beside the one you took out has the ground wire (red/white) in it. That wire is for the door trigger, the "ON" position in the dome lights is grounded to the chassis by the two screws in the dome light housing. I'm not doing this mod but perhaps you can just jump it from there. I tried to just tap into that red/white wire but my switches would only work if the dome light switches were set to "door" and they tie into eachother so my dual switch is useless. I thought about running it like that because it would be so easy, and then to just use the other switch in my dual switch to control some footwell lights, but nah I want to control both domes lights independently.
For my mod using a dual switch I will be running a ground directly from the bulb contact point of each dome light to a relay set up as a negative output. This was the only way I could figure out how to make it work as the "ON" position is grounded by the two screws to the chassis and the red/white door switch wire both tie into both dome lights. I think I'll still add some footwell lights just because there is an over abundance of those switch sockets.
Finished the dual switch for the dome lights. It receives the always on from the same source as the dome lights so it is always hot and can be used/turned on whenever.