Ok I finally found my SD card so I can get this underway.
This is a very simple but time consuming DIY and it looks amazing!
Things you will need:
2 LEDS (5mm is what I used)high brightness preferably
2 Resistors (values depend on LEDs)
Thin wire
Hot glue gun and glue
Soldering Iron and solder
10mm socket and socket extender
Step 1: Remove the door handles from the car.
There are two rubber plug thingys that cover the screws as shown here:
Once you remove the plugs then take a 10mm socket and get the bolts out.
*****Be careful the lower one will try to fall into the door*********
You will need a ratchet extender to get to the lower bolt as well.
After you undo the bolts and put them aside pull upward gently on the handle and wiggle it and it will pull out. (I am not really sure exactly how I pull on them but they come out without too much trouble). The drivers side has an additional step because of the keyhole. You will need to remove the handle partially and then unscrew the keyhole and then the handle will come free.
I also took a pic of this little blue thing inside the door. This is where the rod coming off the handle must go back into for the handle to work. I thought I would be hard to get back in there but it is very easy just dont forget
Ok now that we have the handle out it is time to operate. Pull the handle open like you are opening the door and you will see a black plastic piece. This piece must be removed to get our led in there. Yes I said LED I only used one per handle. Do not lose this piece because we will put it back when we are done.
Moving right along here we now need an LED. I used a 5mm green 16000mcd LED for mine. I ordered them on accident and didnt think I would ever use them, guess I was wrong.
You need to solder a thin wire to each of the leds lead. Wrapping wire from radio shack will work but if you can find better wire than that I would recommend that.
Once you have the leads on cut the leads on the LED to just about where you had soldered the wire. The farther down the better.
Now we need to insulate the leads from each other/water/anything else. What I do is coat the area where the leads are located with hot glue. This seems to work really well and I have used it in numerous LED projects. Some dollar stores carry hot glue guns but if not walmart has them for $5. And they are of course badasss lol.
If you look at the handle where you removed that little black plastic piece you can see holes from the inside of the handle that come through there. Push the wires from the inside of the handle through and once you can grab them on the other side then pull the LED up to the top of the handle.
Now run the wire through the hole where the smaller part of the handle meets the bigger part.
If you want to secure the LED inside the handle use some more of that trusty hot glue and stick it around the LED to hold it in place.
I also used a small spot of glue to keep the wires in place on the back side of the handle.
You must add a resistor or you will burn out the led but this can be added anywhere between the LED and its power source so I dont add mine until the handle is back on the car but if you want to do all of your soldering inside do that now and insulate the resistor. This website will help you calculate the resistor you will need for the LEDs you buy.
http://ledcalc.com/
Connecting the LEDs to power is the hardest part of this entire DIY. I ran wire through the doors because as far as I know there are no interior illumination wires that will come on with the dome lights in the doors. If you want the leds to come on when you open the door or unlock the car like the dome lights do you will have to run wire from there, through the doors, and to the handles. An easy tap for the dome lights is in the drivers side front pillar. I believe red is positive and the purple is the negative you need to connect it to but I will have to go check mine again. It is a lot of work but in the end the result is really cool and definitely unique.
DIY: LED Door Handles
bye bye money.
