[bluefront]

The days are getting shorter, and the dark hours will be longer. Fight it with lighting mods. There are plenty of head-light threads, so I'll leave that aspect alone. Here are a few of the mods I've done involving lighting. I've got a way to go, but here's what I've got so far.....the night shots first.

Trunk lighting....two extra lights at the lower edges of the trunk pointing toward the front of the car.

Reflectors at the top edge of the hatch....only visible when the hatch is open. The only lights that are on in this picture are the trunk lights. The top bright lights are the reflectors.

Reflectors on the four doors.....again only visible when the doors are open. This shot is a little blurry.....sorry.

These reflectors greatly add to the visibility of the Focus, even with the lights off. Something of the sort should have been standard equipment.

Next up.....back-up warning system, trying to improve safety when backing at night. And a parking light off-delay system, that will leave the parking lights on for about 1-3minutes after you turn the lights off. This provides lighting all around the car when exiting at night. Working on the details....stay tuned.

 

[Waffles ZX3 Kona Sport]

Interesting idea with the reflectors...obviously very helpful in certain situations. I know the trunk-lighting idea already has a writeup - did you use that or no?

 

[bluefront]

Some of the trunk mods are described in this thread. I got a new camera recently, which takes better night shots......which are essential to show these sorts of mods. I still have to support the camera. These are about four second exposures. The trunk-light shot comes out more red than it really is....the two lower lights in the trunk are amber.

The reflectors came from Walmart auto department. One package was enough for the four doors and the hatch. They are stick-on vinyl....you cut to fit.

 

[bluefront]

I finished up two more systems this morning. Before permanently mounting the control units and the beeper, I'll need to drive the car for a while.

First..... A Bumper Guard Back-up Alarm. $20 at Target on sale. There is a long foil sensor that mounts under the rear bumper.....the beeper starts slowly beeping in reverse, when you get within about 3' from an object, pole, car, bicycle, kid. etc. As you get closer the beep rate increases. Works good....attaching the sensor was the hardest part. It attaches about 4" from the lower edge of the bumper's back-side. It also detects things on the rear sides. This should be great at night.....this Focus does not have good rear visibility IMHO.

Second......An automatic light shut-off timer. Sorry no links....this is an older device I had laying around. I wired it to leave the tail, side marker, and front running lights on for about 2 minutes after I turn off the ignition. The thing is adjustable from about 1-3 minutes. It throws a pretty good circle of light all around the car......and gives you enough time to walk up to your front door (if it's close enough). This works great.

I only had to run one extra wire to the rear of the trunk....a 12V circuit that's hot all the time. The other wires for both control units, splice into the wire harness that goes to the driver tail lite. Fairly easy mods that should help you out at night. More to come....

 

[bluefront]

A few more lighting mods....Lighting for the glove box. Two LEDs right over the box, not visible when the glove box is closed. To simplify the wiring, these LEDs are on all the time, wired into the dash lights. I also added a few LEDs to light up the foot wells, and the rear seating area.

And I added a lighted bezel to the ignition switch, visible in this photo....the write-up about this procedure is in this thread.

A few more mods to come...

 

[bluefront]

Let me add something about the automatic light shut-off timer from two posts up.....since it is triggered by a brake light, I now have the ability to turn on the running lights and tail lights using the remote (without the horn beeping). You do this by hitting the door lock button on the remote. This flashes the brake light for an instant, and triggers the timer-controlled lights. This could be useful for finding your car on a parking lot at night, maybe other uses.

From inside my house I can turn the lights on (not the head-lights)....unusual benefit to the mod I didn't think about in advance.