Door wiring loom

[VYMAD]

Can extra wires be run through the rubber things that the speaker wires and central locking wires run through? I fixed up a speaker in a mate's VT a while ago and it didn't seem to want to seperate to get the wires in properly. It looks like there's room for a couple of extra wires to go into. Just thought I may be able to put door courtesy lights in.

[Calaber]

Can extra wires be run through the rubber things that the speaker wires and central locking wires run through? I fixed up a speaker in a mate's VT a while ago and it didn't seem to want to seperate to get the wires in properly. It looks like there's room for a couple of extra wires to go into. Just thought I may be able to put door courtesy lights in.

I looked at putting them into my Berlina last week, because I have Calais door trims with the courtesy lights fitted. There is no loom in the doors even on a Series 2 Berlina, so I crawled under the glovebox and checked out the connector inside the pillar where the door loom connects to the main wiring harness.

Lousy buggers don't even provide the wiring in the main wiring harness unless it's a Calais! I could see the connector ok, but the two holes for the wiring were vacant. I thought about running wires as you suggest, but getting them through the two front pillars into the interior is more trouble than I care to consider, particularly on the driver's side, where access to the loom connector for the door is virtually impossible.

Yes, it's possible, but I reckon it would be a mongrel of a job just because of the difficult area you have to work in for both front doors. The back doors would probably be reasonably simple by comparison.

[VYMAD]

Yep, thanks ya cranky ol' bastard,lol. I reckon I can tap my interior light like I did when I installed the footwell courtesies. Just reckon would be a mongrel job getting the wires through the rubber door-to-pillar bits?

[Calaber]

Yep, thanks ya cranky ol' bastard,lol. I reckon I can tap my interior light like I did when I installed the footwell courtesies. Just reckon would be a mongrel job getting the wires through the rubber door-to-pillar bits?

Grumble, grumble.....

Yep, the toughest bit would be getting the wire into the interior of the car. I think you would have to disconnect the door harness at the pillar, run the wire through from the lights, then pass the wire through the two vacant holes in the interior connector on the main wiring harness, then reconnect the door harness. Then you could hook the lights up however you pleased. On the passenger side, removing the glovebox and lower dash trim would probably give you decent access, but when you look at the driver's side, you can't see a damned thing because of the fuse box and wiring harnesses. Also, for the driver's door, the factory loom actually provided a second connector, with only the two wires for the courtesy light; the wiring was not run through the main door connector. It still ran through the rubber insulator into the interior, but then used the small separate connector. I'm assuming this might be because the driver's door connector had no spare ports for the wires, due to the power mirror switch, perhaps?

[VYMAD]

Ok thanks for the quick replies, looks like I will give it a miss. Shame though because it would have been something I would have enjoyed doing and well worth the effort. Looks like I'll just wait till I get another "bright" idea. Cheers.

[Calaber]

Ok thanks for the quick replies, looks like I will give it a miss. Shame though because it would have been something I would have enjoyed doing and well worth the effort. Looks like I'll just wait till I get another "bright" idea. Cheers.

Yeah, that was exactly my feeling about it too, especially as the lights are just sitting there on the trims doing nothing. Too much effort.

[TMM]

It certainly is do-able.
I have run additional speaker wires through the rubber grommets of all of my doors. They are a prick to do, especially the rear because the cables don't have much slack in them, the door obscures the grommet, the grommet itself is barely big enough for the stock cables, and you have to hunt around inside the sill panel with long nosed pliers to find your wire .

The best way i found was to get a 30 to 50cm length of ~1mm enameled copper wire, bend one end back onto itself (so it isn't sharp) lube it up with silicon spray and carefully feed it through the grommet. Then solder your cable to the unbent end of the copper wire, wrap up the connection with tape (so any sharp bits don't catch on anything), lube your cable and pull it through .

It also helps if you get a can of silicon spray with the straw nozzle, stick it inside the grommet and give it a good spray