I didnt glue mine, so when you put your hand on them they get pushed in flush, but as soon as you take your hand off then pop back out, but i suppose you could hot glue them... and as for the handles i used plasti-dip and didnt sand anything.

take pictures

 

whoa, really...they push in flush and then pop back out. Weird, luckily they don't fall in...that would be a real pain. I'm just trying to decide if I want red LEDs or white...hmmm

I was also thinking of just setting a little silicone in the hole, that would work to keep them in place, I'll have to really play with it until I figure out what will work for me. Would one of the LED's fit in the area beneath the part of the handle that moves?

 

well if you would put one there you would have to put the LED flush, so that when you pulled in the handle it wouldn't hit. But silicone would probably work

 

well...I'll look into doing in that way then. I think I'd just prefer not to feel it.

 

Well, I just finished doing one door on my MINI, and I will be doing the other tomorrow morning.

I did mine a bit differently though...

All the wiring in the door is the same, I just did my handle a little differently.

First off, I wanted mine to sit flush and not be able to feel them when grabbing the latch so I had to go a little deeper...

Here is the handle:


To get to the inside, you need to pry off the chrome (in my case) part. Just use a flat head and work your way around. It has a few clips along with some glue:


Once all the glue is broken off you can simply pull it apart with your hands:



Chrome. A good time to black out if wanted.


Then you need to pull the grab latch out of the black housing. Its very easy. Just pull and twist.


Here is what that looks like:


Be careful not to lose the spring inside, that give the whole handle its resistance.

Inside:


I drilled my hole using the tiniest drill bit I could, to give it a snug fit. This is a 5mm LED in the grab latch.


And from the inside:


I used two LEDs. Plenty of light. Any more would be over kill!


This is one of them partially ground down.


Soldering my leads on to my LEDs.


Glued in from the inside! I used 5 minute plastic epoxy, its OKay. Not great.


Its getting closer!


Both LEDs soldered and glued in place.


I drilled a TINY hole in the mounting bracket, I used telephone wire so everything is smaller scale.


Both ground flush with the grab handle.


SEE!!!


Handle all put back together...


And now you just need to reassemble and wire. There are good directions above for that. If you have an 05+ you can just tap into the puddle lights. (LUCKY)

Finale
Off


ON (this is brighter then they look, the shutter was open for 20 seconds.


Off


On (more true)


Some other pics of it:





Thanks for reading!!

Addison

 

That is AWSOME!

 

I like! going back to school in the fall so i may take of my handles black them out and epoxy my l.e.d.s in!

 

Hey if anyone local to me wants to give me a hand with this I can compensate them with some beer/carbon fiber wrap:-p

 

Finished redoing my handles... again

epoxied them and sanded flush next is the dash lights! https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post2854687

 

Bringing this thread back, has anyone tried to do this in their gas cap to match the handles?

 

That would look crazy!

 

Hmm maybe if I get to this mod...

 

Yeah, I think I am going to do it this weekend because I need to paint my door handles anyway. I have to run the wire to the foot lighting so that sucks. Oh well, awesome mod! Any tips for plasitc dipping the handles? I don't want it to come off!

 

Im confused, what do you mean by led in the gas cap, like when you open the cover?

 

That or when the gas cap is even closed, to highlight it.

 

Hmmm interesting idea... but I'm not comfortable with electrical near my flammable... I surely don't want sparking anywhere near there.

 

Good point! Lol. Just got my LEDs, I went with the 5mm blue. There is a computer electronic store right across the street from me and they have everything you could imagine! Tons of LEDs! And super cheap!

 

What about your fuel pump, I'm sure thats electrical...

 

The fuel pump is not exposed to anything aftermarket... and I didn't say I didn't like the idea, just going to have to silicone up the wires so they don't have any chance of sparking. I've already done my door handles with red using this thread for reference and have some left over LED's I've been thinking what to do with them. I thought about putting one on the tips of each door lock and wire them to the alarm so when armed they blink but also travel up and down with the door locking. Strictly for theft deterrence, but when I got into the door lock, there was no clean way to get the black **** tip off.

 

I was just kidding about the fuel pump...

The VW's have the red blinking light on the door lock, i looked into doing that also. Its true, there is no clean way of removing them

What if you added a red blinking light in your door handle.. that might look good...

 

That's not a bad idea... I might just have to plan that on my next mod for removing my door panels. That should be just as effective yet original as the door lock tips.

 

About to get started!!!!!!!!! Also going to wire in some Puddle Lights (I have an 03') and a light which lights up the inside of the door panel! I will take pics!

 

I'm done!!!! Turned out awesome!!!! I will post pics in a min!

 

I couldn't seem to fish the wires through the handle so I ended up taking them apart. I sanded them down and them hot glued them in flush!





Also added Puddle Lights and a LED for inside the door!

Hot Glued!




Also Flush!



And the final product!

Passenger:






Puddle Lights!


Driver:











Just a clean picture!

 

Looks good! Nice work.