Gen 3 rear interior light, again.

After reading the article in the wi-ki section about installing a rear cabin light I decided to take the plunge.

I ordered the relevant lamp from Ali-express, a good copy of an original, but, when I visited my local Suzuki dealer armed with the Suzuki part number for the cable, well, they said it is not a Suzuki part number, even after showing them on my phone a picture of the cable in original packaging!
They even printed out a page from the parts manual, and the cable is not mentioned. So, I took the plunge and ordered one off Ebay, from Japan!

Eventually the cable arrived (total price €50) and I got to work stripping the panels out to access where the connecting loom plug should be. It wasn’t there. So, after much swearing I put everything back together, thinking I would not now bother as I did not have the inclination to run wires from the front, as suggested in the wi-ki article.

I thought about all this for a few days as I had spent time and money on getting the relevant parts, So in the end I managed to fit the lamp, simply by splicing into the three wires for the front lamp above the rear view mirror, running small gauge three core cable around and behind the roof lining, and then cutting the cable with the two (different) plugs that I’d sourced from Japan, connecting the relevant wires up and plugging into the new lamp.

The lamp works as it should do, off, on and on when any door is opened. Job done.

I put a light in the boot, mounted in one of the knock-outs.  I bought an LED 'door' light from eBay (about £8 for two) and cut a slot in the knock-out, then fitted the LED in place.  I made a simple wiring harness up with two part connector as shown below

 

I already have 12V behind the panel for my tow bar/reverse camera and just wired the rear light in to the rear door switch (connects to earth when you open any of the doors).

The LED is bright enough to illuminate the boot

 

Of course it doesn't illuminate the back passengers, but I seldom take anyone in the back and the knock-out was much easier than taking out the head lining.

Robin
 

I didn’t remove the headlining, just removed the sunvisors and grab handles and was able to just tuck the cable behind it, securing it here and there with small strips of duck tape so it doesn’t rattle.
My rear seats are always folded down as the dog is in the back.

All I was suggesting was that by splicing into the front lamp, the rear lamp also comes on when any door is opened.