Borahshadow's 97 K1500 ECSB build thread.

[borahshadow]

Here is what I spent my money on instead of LED tails

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I love my overhead console!

I had my console almost all wired up and about half way installed before I noticed that it wasn't wired the way I wanted. I'll detail how I rewired it first.

I knew that I wanted to wire the map lights so that they would come on with the dome light yet still be able to be turned on manually. The dome light circuit is what is called a ground switched circuit meaning that the switch makes and breaks the connection to ground. The map lights in the console are power or source switched so when the switch is closed the power can flow from the positive side. That's incompatible with the dome light circuit. The simplest thing to do it to make them compatible is to convert the map lights to ground switched. That's simple. Just switch the power and ground wires when you wire them up. There now it's ground switched.

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That doesn't make it come on with the dome lights though. To do that you have to splice into the (now ground) wire but you need to do it between the switch and the bulb not after. That's not it though. If you simply splice the white ground switched wire from the dome light into that then any time that you turn on the map lights manually you will create a path to ground for the entire dome light circuit which will activate the entire dome light circuit. To avoid this you need to use some diodes which are the electrical equivalent of a one way valve.

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Here I wired in the diodes you need to use two, one for each map light. If you just use one diode then you will active both map lights with either button, but the rest of the dome light circuit will stay off. I just use a common 1N4001 Diode which is rated for 1Amp. Each of those map lights aren't going to pull that much especially once I convert to LEDs in them (that's coming soon ) You could also use a 1N4007 or any general purpose diode with about 1 amp of capacity.

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I also had to run another wire up the a-pillar for my homelink unit. I though I had pre-wired everything that I needed when I installed my mirror but my homelink has an illumination wire that illuminates the buttons when the dash lights come on. So I spliced into the green wire coming out of the headlight switch and ran that up there too.

I got the white domelight wire from well, the dome light. I took the domelight down and then tapped into it and fished it under the head liner.

I wired up a weather pack connector that I had laying around so that I could disconnect the wires if I needed to take it down for some reason and also to make it a little easier to install. The weather pack was only a 3 wire and the dome light wire was a 4th wire which also went the opposite direction so I used a little trick I've used before on that. I just used a common quick connect and then covered it with heat shrink to make it insulated. It doesn't need to be waterproof up here.

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I also replaced the elastic on the rear storage compartment before I installed it.

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There it's installed!

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I had also picked up a "Vanity" sun visor when I was out at the junk yard. It's the kind that has the mirror and the lights on either side of the mirror. It also has the slide out part that you can use to block the sun if it's in a hard to block spot. I didn't get one for the passenger side because it was in worse shape than the drivers side one, I hadn't already run power and ground over to the passenger side like I did on the drivers side, and my passenger side has a (non-lighted) mirror already. My drivers side didn't. Besides doesn't the driver deserve the most luxury?

The "vanity" sun visor is heavier than the basic sun visor that I had and so it has a clip on the far side while the one that I had is supported solely by the hinge. Installing that little clip ended up being the hardest part of the sun visor install. I ran into hurdle after hurdle, some of those hurdles were caused by my own poor judgement but I got it installed finally.

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I love the new feel of my interior. With my overhead console with homelink, Nicer sunvisor, Escalade cluster, LEDs, and the features of taking phone calls through my truck speakers that my Eclipse HU gives me I feel like I'm driving a luxury truck now!

I have a little phone dock that goes in the cup holder. The other night I was driving somewhere that I didn't know how to get to. I pulled up the google navigation on my phone while it was in that car dock. It held my phone at the right spot to look at the map on my phone. I was streaming music from my phone to my truck so when my phone needed to give me directions it would interrupt the music, verbally tell me the directions, and resume playing my music. Just like the luxury cars/trucks with built in navigation

PS. This thread is now caught up to the current state of my truck. When I get time I'm going to cross post it all over to a thread in the member trucks section so that I can receive some feedback on what I've done. It's late and I'm going to bed tonight though.

 

[borahshadow]

I got a new dome light installed.
I got a dome light out of suburban. It's got similar map lights to the map lights in the overhead console and overall looks newer and nicer. I got the front dome light from the suburban because I thougt it would be the most direct fit. It didn't end up being a direct fit. I saw on the forums where another member put the same style dome light in. He said he got it from the rear of the suburban so if I had it to do over I'd try that one. I had to do some clearancing of the light to get it to fit. I also used a self tapping screw instead of part of the original mounting method.

I also modified the map lights to come on with the dome light like I did in the overhead console. These were already ground switched so I just had to wire in the diodes.

For some reason I didn't grab a picture of it fully installed so I'll do that with my next update.


I also got LEDs put in the 4x4 selector. I used the WLED-X LEDs from SBL. I used a cool white one for the illumination and a red one for the 4x4 engaged indicator.

Lighted

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Lighted and 4x4 engaged with normal bulb in the 4x4 indicator

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lighted and 4x4 engaged with red LED

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4x4 engaged without illumination on

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I also got my LEDs for the Map Lights in the overhead console. I don't have any of the other LEDs that I ordered for the rest of the courtesy lights. I'm still waiting for the super slow Chinese Economy shipping to get them here.

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That is with the stock bulbs in all the courtesy lights except for the overhead console Map lights.
When I get the LEDs for the other two map lights, festoon, underdash lights, and door lights it should be super bright and super white!