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How To: Illuminated Door Sills (No Solder)


gopack471

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Installed the Illuminated Door Sill Panels from Ford Accessories today. Total install time was just over an hour. Standard disclaimer - I'm not responsible for whatever you do to your car as a result of these instructions

 

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Ford's instructions are pretty good, but there are a couple places where I differed from them. Most notably, I used squeeze connectors from Radio Shack instead of soldering the wires. These are much easier (IMO) and at $2.50/pack you can't go wrong.

 

Tools Needed: 10mm socket/wrench, pliers, razor knife, plastic putty knife, splice connectors (see pic below, for 18-22 gauge wire), zip ties (included)

 

Splice Connectors:

 

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The steps below correspond to the steps in the Ford instructions. Changes I made are in bold with an asterisk *

 

1. Disconnect the negative battery cable. I'd like to meet the SOB at Ford that decided to bury this under the cowl, but it is what it is. You want to do this any time you're working with electronics, and there's so many airbags in this car I just feel safer.

 

2-5. Start pulling panels as shown in instruction manual. They come up pretty easily and the clips are pretty well spaced. In step 5 you'll have to give the Xmas tree peg at the base of that panel a pretty good tug

 

*6*. I didn't remove the A pillar completely. Just pull it straight out (towards the steering wheel) and let it sit there. You'll see why later.

 

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7-10. Repeat on passenger side. Note that you don't need to remove the passenger side A-pillar

 

Completed passenger side disassembly:

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11. Be very careful here. Remove the overhead panel. The corner clips that it warns you about are incredibly fragile, especially in the back. I'll probably end up having to put some glue in there because I think I broke a tiny piece of one. This is the hardest panel to remove - what I ended up doing was getting the front loose first and then slowly working my way back but I couldn't seem to avoid a big tug that finally got it free

 

Try not to separate the two pieces like I did here:

2VY0BWh.jpg

 

12. Remove the main harness connector. This is what you'll be connecting to. I also removed the secondary connector on the side to completely remove the panel and set it aside

 

13. The cable runs to the left edge of the headlinerpanel and loops back to the center, glued the whole way. Just work your finger under it and eventually it will come up so you can fish it back behind the headliner.

 

14. You're going to want to cut the black wrap back as far as you can

 

15/16. There are two gray-violet wires. Make sure you get the one that's in the position marked in the guide. This is where I used the squeeze connectors. There are two channels in them. One goes all the way through, so this is the one that you slip over the wire in the car. The second only goes part way, so run the wire from the sill kit into this end. Make sure both wires are centered in their channels, then squeeze the connector shut with your pliers. Both wires should be in place. Once I tested them I wrapped them in electrical tape.

 

The second wire from the bottom (the gray/violet one between the violet and yellow-green) is the one you want to connect the red lead to, the black wire is on the top (black to black):

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Both wires connected:

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Connect the negative battery cable here and test to make sure the lights go on. Then, you can fish the harness back into place, reconnect it (after disconnecting the negative battery cable again), and put the overhead panel back into place

 

19. I just ran the wire down the inside of the A-pillar. There's no need to zip tie it in and this saves you from struggling to get the pegs on the A-pillar out (they're stubborn). You'll have to force the wire in between the weather stripping and the base of the A-pillar with the plastic putty knife.

 

Wire run so far:

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As soon as you run wires through a point, you can start putting panels back in as directed in the instructions

 

21. I had to pull off the center console trim pieces on both sides to fish the wire through. For zip ties, make sure you run them around the steel frame behind the knee airbag, not the airbag itself.

 

Zip tie location (cut the excess off):

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22. I pulled a carpet peg out near the door and ran the light cable through there, then used the same peg to anchor it back in place.

 

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Final cable run on driver side:

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Now you're just replacing panels. As you replace them, they tend to go over the weatherstripping. I use a plastic putty knife to fix the weather stripping and force it back over the panels where it belongs.

 

I'll post more pictures of the final result later once I get a chance to go out at night

Edited by gopack471
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Nice post GoPack, thanks for posting this.

 

I had my illuminated sills installed by the dealer. They broke one of the clips on the overhead storage/lighting bin, but fixed it when I took the car back in.

 

The illuminated sills are a nice feature.

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Nice post GoPack, thanks for posting this.

 

I had my illuminated sills installed by the dealer. They broke one of the clips on the overhead storage/lighting bin, but fixed it when I took the car back in.

 

The illuminated sills are a nice feature.

 

How much did it cost? (Labor & parts)

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I bought the door sills on-line and got a discounted price, I got my sill plates from Levittown Ford for $147. Labor was about an hour and a half, which came in just under $200. With the labor it got pricey, but with a brand new car I didn't want to take any chances doing it myself. If you break a couple of plastic parts taking things apart the savings can diminish pretty fast.

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accessories.ford.com will givbe you the SRP of instalation of $90ish. I negotiated the Levittown price match at my dealer and am paying them the SRP for install (which I think is fair).

 

I agree with the above. Let Ford do the install so they can replace broken clips should it happen, but either get a price match or buy it yourself. :)

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accessories.ford.com listed $52 for installation at my dealer which was a price that I'm sure they couldn't do. I didn't ask for the sills but I'm basing this off of a family member's experience with having reverse sensors installed on an escape - Installation quote online was about $90 and they said no way its a three labor hour job. They didn't charge three hours of labor on that job but they didn't do it for the ford quote either. Maybe its something I could have pushed but oh well.

 

For me I enjoy working on my car, so I chose to do it on my own as a challenge. Yes, its nerve wracking working on a new car but I like being able to look at them and say that I installed them

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  • 2 years later...

I just ordered my illuminated sills and got them in. It was pouring down rain today and had nothing to do and decided to install them myself. I was a bit nervous only because this car has so much technology and airbags etc. I just took my time and knew I had everything I needed to do the install. I removed all the paneling illustrated. The only thing that I was confused about was the wiring leading to the light sills. One wire lead was much shorter than the other. I figured out immediately that the short sided wire lead to the driver door sill and the full length wire lead to the passenger side and must be done behind the carpeted area. I did have a line puller to pull the wire through the back of the center stack rear area. I can see where a wire hanger can do the same job. I did make a misjudgement on connecting the wires to the above lighted panel and the connector I put on sliced through the wire instead of just splicing into it. I was pissed as where I connected it was just a bit too close to the terminal connector. Fortunately I had just enough lead wire and was able to solder on to it! Don't make my mistake. Give yourself as much wire to work with in case the wire is cut. Bottom line, it works and I love the add on and don't want to do anything like that again anytime soon! Only thing else I have done to my car was to add a JL amp and 12 Sub-woofer and it matches the sound of the car wonderfully!post-54113-0-27463300-1442000208_thumb.jpg

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Edited by darynm
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  • 7 months later...

I notice the 2016 Fusion wiring diagram manual shows a positive wire for the illuminated sill right below the sill on both sides now. So, I'm forging ahead with install and wanted to mention that having a wire in that location means not having to mess with the install pictured above and tearing into the roof panel!

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  • 8 months later...

I notice the 2016 Fusion wiring diagram manual shows a positive wire for the illuminated sill right below the sill on both sides now. So, I'm forging ahead with install and wanted to mention that having a wire in that location means not having to mess with the install pictured above and tearing into the roof panel!

Can you provide more info on the 2016 wiring changes?? I have a 2017 Fusion Sport, and would prefer to NOT have to run wires all the way up the a pillar. Also, where might I be able to find a wiring diagram online. I had a wiring and body shop manual for my two previous Mazda 6's and they made projects like these SO much easier.

 

Thanks....

 

JH

Edited by cldfusion77
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