Illiminated Sill Plates

[Scoot]

Got mine this afternoon and just finished installing them. It took about an hour. The hardest part was determining which of the wires on the connector was blue/green/red/black. If you're holding the connector with the clip up and the wires going off to the left, the black (ground) wire is on the bottom (nearest you) and the blue is on the top (farthest away). After that, the next hardest part was figuring out which wire was the grey/violet one that I needed to tap into. On a scale of one to ten, I'd rate the difficulty at about a 5 just because the directions weren't very clear.

I went with the blue colored light and think it looks good.

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[SVTFreak]

Got mine this afternoon and just finished installing them. It took about an hour. The hardest part was determining which of the wires on the connector was blue/green/red/black. If you're holding the connector with the clip up and the wires going off to the left, the black (ground) wire is on the bottom (nearest you) and the blue is on the top (farthest away). After that, the next hardest part was figuring out which wire was the grey/violet one that I needed to tap into. On a scale of one to ten, I'd rate the difficulty at about a 5 just because the directions weren't very clear.

I went with the blue colored light and think it looks good.

And where the eff are the pics?????

 

[Scoot]

Ask and you shall receive! I set the color to blue.

 

[Mustangchief]

Got mine this afternoon and just finished installing them. It took about an hour. The hardest part was determining which of the wires on the connector was blue/green/red/black. If you're holding the connector with the clip up and the wires going off to the left, the black (ground) wire is on the bottom (nearest you) and the blue is on the top (farthest away). After that, the next hardest part was figuring out which wire was the grey/violet one that I needed to tap into. On a scale of one to ten, I'd rate the difficulty at about a 5 just because the directions weren't very clear.

I went with the blue colored light and think it looks good.

Was the harness there or did you tap into the fuse box

 

[SVTFreak]

Ask and you shall receive! I set the color to blue.

Thanks!!!

Hmmm. I like I think.

 

[Husker]

 

[Scoot]

The harness was there, but since I didn't have factory installed sill plates, it didn't work. So, I tapped into the grey/violet wire coming from the fuse box -- a real pain!

 

[pjk]

My son took these LE Sills to the dealer and had them installed. The wiring was there but not used. The tech copied from the settings from the module of a new car on the lot with illuminated sills and pasted those settings into my car and it works like a charm. It even changes colors with the ambient lighting settings. See video link below. The flickering is just my video abilities.

So as I understand it, it's plug-n-play if you have access to a non-LE vehicle with factory illuminated sills, can copy the settings from that car (via ODBM I think?), and paste them into your car. I wasn't there when they were installed so I might be missing a few steps. What I really wanted to convey is it is possible to get them to change colors with the ambient light setting.

My son did good, didn't he?????

FYI

 

[SVTFreak]

Copy and paste what settings using what type of device to do this?

 

[pjk]

I wasn't there so I'm only going by what was relayed to me. It was done at a Ford dealer.

1) He first confirmed the wiring harness near the doorsills was in fact run from the harness to the somewhere (controller?). This involved removing the subwoofer in the trunk and testing the wiring.
2) He then used some device that I believe plugged into the OBD port to copy the settings from a new Mustang on the lot that had illuminated sills. He then used that same device to paste them into the settings of my LE. I believe they were the Ambient Lighting settings. My son said it was a "module" setting, maybe for Ambient Lighting?

In hindsight, I wished I had gone with him. I was working at the time. I sent him asking to have "ice blue" as the color if possible thinking I had to choose one. He returned with a big grin on his face showing me how they change with the Ambient color setting. I wish I had more details but I wasn't there.

Maybe I should've just kept it to myself without more details but I figured if I found a Ford tech at my local dealer that could figure it out someone here might be able to do the same. The downside is if I ever have the car updated due to a recall it might override this and I'd be left with no lighted sills (unless I have the same thing done again.)

 

[SVTFreak]

Very interesting. Thanks for the information. Now I'm very curious.

 

[Husker]

I wasn't there so I'm only going by what was relayed to me. It was done at a Ford dealer.

1) He first confirmed the wiring harness near the doorsills was in fact run from the harness to the somewhere (controller?). This involved removing the subwoofer in the trunk and testing the wiring.
2) He then used some device that I believe plugged into the OBD port to copy the settings from a new Mustang on the lot that had illuminated sills. He then used that same device to paste them into the settings of my LE. I believe they were the Ambient Lighting settings. My son said it was a "module" setting, maybe for Ambient Lighting?

In hindsight, I wished I had gone with him. I was working at the time. I sent him asking to have "ice blue" as the color if possible thinking I had to choose one. He returned with a big grin on his face showing me how they change with the Ambient color setting. I wish I had more details but I wasn't there.

Maybe I should've just kept it to myself without more details but I figured if I found a Ford tech at my local dealer that could figure it out someone here might be able to do the same. The downside is if I ever have the car updated due to a recall it might override this and I'd be left with no lighted sills (unless I have the same thing done again.)

On your receipt, does it show the name of the wrench...maybe we could call him for information on how this was actually done??

 

[Write2connor]

Hi, I am PJK's son. I thought that I might share the process of putting in the illuminated door sills and getting them to work with the ambient lighting system. I work at a local Ford dealership in Seattle, so I asked one of the senior techs if he would help me install the door sills on my dad's LE and he said, sure!

First, we took out the old door sill and started to install the new one when the tech noticed that there a was wiring for door sills because of the factor connection underneath the old door sill. After discovering that he then pulled up the electrical diagram for the vehicle and found that there is a module that controls just the ambient lighting and the rear windows if it were a convertible. The next step was to make sure that our LE had all of the wiring for that module and so in order to get to that module we had to pull out the sub woofer located in the trunk. Once we did that, we found that the module did indeed have all the wiring there. After that he then plugged the door sills into the factor connection and proceeded to plug his computer into the OBD port. With the software that Ford provides he went and tried to turn it on but it didn't want to turn on. Next, he told me to go grab a mustang off the lot and make sure it was a coupe with illuminated door sills(because the convertibles have a different module). So, I brought him a Eco Boost which had illuminated door sills and he took his computer and plugged it into the OBD port of that car. Once he located the module in that car with the program that Ford provides him, he then proceeded to save the settings of that module to his computer. Then he went to my dad's LE and plugged his computer and found the ambient lighting module and reflashed it with the Eco Boost's module settings. Once that was done, Presto the lights worked like a charm. He then told me that a side effect that this might cause is that it might throw a code(because it taking settings from a different car with a different vin and putting it in the LE) but that code won't appear on the instrument cluster. So after he told me that, he performed a system check to see if it would throw a code and it didn't which was awesome. He then said the only time there would be any sort of issue is if the ambient lighting module went out but, if the tech knows what they are doing when they replace the module and it had some sort of life left in it they can save the settings from the old module and put them on the new module.

I hope this might clear up some of the questions that you guys might have!

 

[Husker]

Hi, I am PJK's son. I thought that I might share the process of putting in the illuminated door sills and getting them to work with the ambient lighting system. I work at a local Ford dealership in Seattle, so I asked one of the senior techs if he would help me install the door sills on my dad's LE and he said, sure!

First, we took out the old door sill and started to install the new one when the tech noticed that there a was wiring for door sills because of the factor connection underneath the old door sill. After discovering that he then pulled up the electrical diagram for the vehicle and found that there is a module that controls just the ambient lighting and the rear windows if it were a convertible. The next step was to make sure that our LE had all of the wiring for that module and so in order to get to that module we had to pull out the sub woofer located in the trunk. Once we did that, we found that the module did indeed have all the wiring there. After that he then plugged the door sills into the factor connection and proceeded to plug his computer into the OBD port. With the software that Ford provides he went and tried to turn it on but it didn't want to turn on. Next, he told me to go grab a mustang off the lot and make sure it was a coupe with illuminated door sills(because the convertibles have a different module). So, I brought him a Eco Boost which had illuminated door sills and he took his computer and plugged it into the OBD port of that car. Once he located the module in that car with the program that Ford provides him, he then proceeded to save the settings of that module to his computer. Then he went to my dad's LE and plugged his computer and found the ambient lighting module and reflashed it with the Eco Boost's module settings. Once that was done, Presto the lights worked like a charm. He then told me that a side effect that this might cause is that it might throw a code(because it taking settings from a different car with a different vin and putting it in the LE) but that code won't appear on the instrument cluster. So after he told me that, he performed a system check to see if it would throw a code and it didn't which was awesome. He then said the only time there would be any sort of issue is if the ambient lighting module went out but, if the tech knows what they are doing when they replace the module and it had some sort of life left in it they can save the settings from the old module and put them on the new module.

I hope this might clear up some of the questions that you guys might have!

Thanks for this valuable information. This would probably cost an arm and a leg going to a local dealership and convincing them to go this route.

 

[aggieStang]

Just a thought, but couldnt you just replace the ford module with an aftermarket rgb controller to get things up and going?

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