Installed only the footwell lighting, still have not been able to have the time to figure out how to take apart the center console to get to the cup holders and cubby area.
Brief description on what I did:
1) Make sure before doing any wiring to disconnect the negative on the battery.
2) Started with the wiring in the driver side footwell. Each of the LED strips I bought come with a generous amount of wire to connect them, and each also has female receiver pins on the other end so you can string them end to end. +1 for this!
The easiest place to put the driver side one was to zip tie it to a wiring harness against the fire wall. Here is a picture of where I put it. The pole in the middle is the steering wheel shaft.
The lights were longer than what I needed, but I did not cut them so I could daisy chain the passenger side to them. Make sure to connect this first before tightening everything up, and either electrical tape or shrink tube the connections to ensure they stay together.
3) Next one to do is the passenger side. You will want to remove the kick panels on the center console to help with easy access. They pop out pretty easily. Feed the wire from the passenger side to the driver side and then plug it in to the female end.
Here is a picture from the passenger side. I routed the cable around a bracket so it would remain out of the way.
Here it is on the driver side, plugged into the driver side strip
For the pasenger side, I decided to attatch it to the bottom of the plastic trim at the top of the footwell. (I removed it before the first picture I think) I removed the adhesive protective strip, and then also added some double sided carpet tape as the adhesive is not that great really. The lights were too long so I cut them down at one of the cut marks.
Once this is done, work your way back, managing your cable until you reach the inside fuse box.
4) For the rear seats, I looked first at putting them along the center console or attaching them under the front seats. I couldn't find a nice attachment point, so I decided I would try and put them under the rear seats instead.
First, I had to route the wiring to the back. I used one of the extension wiries to get to the rear seat. Just remove the plastic door sill trim to expose the wiring harness as shown.
Make sure you put the male end to the fuse box and the female to rear seats! It was fairly easy to fish it up out of the carpet by folding back some of the rear seat carpeting.
5) I didn't want to cut either of these strips so that the light would remain even, so I started on both sides from the outsides and worked my way in. There is a nice bar under the seats I attatched the light strips to and made sure the lights were angled to the opening.
Once I got to the middle, I couldn't reach in anymore, so I ended up having to fold up the middle "20" of the 40/20/40 seats. The plastic trim gets removed and with the two bolts taken out, it lifts up very easily. When wiring the middle, make sure to leave ample amounts of slack in the line so the seats can fold down. You only need to mess with the middle seat to test this. After that, getting the slack managed is a bit tricky, but doable.
EDIT: After some time one of the strips broke from the repeated seats going down. I think there was enough space, it was just getting pinched. I re-ran it with a new strip and this time undid the bolts for all 3 seat sections, and then ran the wires from the middle out by starting at the back, zip-tieing to that bar again, and going back again. It is working much better, has no chance of being pinched anymore, and the connections are servicable by undoing the cover between the cargo area and back of the seat. Win Win!
END EDIT
After this, I connected them to the wire pulled in step 4 Make sure to keep black with black for all connections! as I found out, the extension wires and the strips do not have the same wire color schemes...
6) Now that everything is wired back to the fuse box, it is time to connect it up! I left the trim off until after it was tested just incase something didn't work right.
I purchased a fuse expander from the local autoparts store and used the fuse spot listed in my previous post, #12 of this thread. I think it is labeled rear outlet iirc? Power with Acc. (I plan on using this slot later as well for a future center cubby 12v socket) Positive to the expansion fuse, negative to the bolt holding the fuse box to the chassis.
After making sure everything was connected securely, I re-connected the negative on the battery and turned on the ignition. Success! Put all trim and upholstery back, double checking that the back seats can fold and do not put strain on the led strips.
I will have to take some before and after photos and post them
I also replaced all of the interior lights with the VLED 5k lights, and they make a huge difference!
FYI, this project is still in progress. I still want to add a toggle switch to turn the lights off if desired, add them to a circuit that will power them with the dome lights are on/ doors open as well, and add cup holder and center console cubby lights, and maybe even a center console or glove compartment light as well. My wiring is a mess, all shoved behind the fuse box cover for now haha
