When disassembling the console on Maytag I noticed there was no light on the driver's kick panel (left side panel under dash).
On Vlad there is. I don't have any great pictures of it, but this sorta shows it:
And here you can see the actual light.
At first I thought "Oh, maybe that's a difference between a 535is and 528e or maybe it's a 5-speed/automatic thing". But then I noticed that every picture I've seen of kick panels for sale don't have the hole for the light. And I noticed that the realOEM diagrams don't show a light.
Start looking at E39 lighting: footwells and the bottom of front doors. (Not sure the E34 has footwell lights?)
It would be easy enough to fit one of those in the bottom of the map pocket to illuminate the ground just outside the open door. You can easily use LED's but I always thought soft, golden glow of the incandescent bulbs were better.
Going to have to take a look at the E39's lights...
Agreed, Lighting in general is pretty weak inside and out on these ( and most older cars in general eh). Improving front exterior lights, adding extra rear tails and brighter bulbs make them safer... But small things like this, and dimming interior lights sure do make things seems so much more modern. (especially for the ladies)
They must show off the coco mats and sweet afty Gas pedal nicely!
I'll take some more pics of it asap so people can copy it. The hole he cut in the kick panel is perfect and the light fits like factory. I never even considered it wasn't OE.
PO got back to me on my query on where he sourced the light:
Thanks. Got those from my local euro parts guy. Told him what I was doing and he handed me those - they are Mercedes parts. I have no clue what they are actually designed to fit.
This is a nice idea, I've often bemoaned the lack of lighting in both the e28 and e23.
The e32 has some nice interior fixtures that could easily be repurposed, both on the door cards and for the footwells.
Some nice amber/red led festoon bulbs would complete the look.
Got a junk yard nearby? I'd expect that taking a sampling of various euro cars would give you an assortment of fixtures that could be grafted into the electrical system without that much trouble. Not just euro cars, either - anything that wouldn't look out of place would work.
Old american cars had great interior lighting, one of the things I remember from my youth. Lincolns especially.
Lastly, https://www.rallylights.com/ (Susquehanna Motorsports) offers g-p Hella interior lighting fixtures, and pricing isn't too bad the last time I checked.
Here's moar pictures of the install the PO did. When I'd taken this kick panel off previously I noticed the speaker wires, but assumed he had added those to power the LEDs he put in the door-pull enclosures. Now that I really think about it that doesn't make sense because he made those always-on.
Anyway, now I know the speaker wire runs to the pass foot well where there's another one of these fixtures. I actually never noticed there was light over the until tonight when I was taking pictures in the dark, trying to capture my new shift knob.
I'm surprised you'd think that light was stock given all the mood lighting the PO added to your door handles and such. I think you should go for the fluorescents they use when they're filming people driving in a car at night.
My parents' '72 Cadillac and I think even the Corvette has those footwell lights. I guess I've spent so much time in European cars over the years, I never realized they're common.
Looks like he used a trunk light. I have to say it's a pretty clever idea. Could come right off of the dome light switches in the door jamb. I don't think the E34 has that either. Of course, I can't open the door to find out.
wkohler wrote:Looks like he used a trunk light. I have to say it's a pretty clever idea. Could come right off of the dome light switches in the door jamb. I don't think the E34 has that either. Of course, I can't open the door to find out.
As noted above, this light is from a Mercedes.
He tied them in at the light switches. You can see the hack job he did in this picture I took the first time I had the dash apart.
Looks like the same fixture used for our trunk lights. Not surprising that the same manufacturer could have made for both companies. I think BMW used them all the way up through the first ugly-ass 7-series (I hear people thinking E23 - I'm not talking about the E23).
[/img]