G'Day Sheilas and Blokes,

I just replaced the Led in the driver side door handle of my V8V (passenger side is the same) and thought I share this simple fix, at your friendly it would be unnecessary expensive.

Here is how to do it.

1. Remove the door card (is described in some other threads)

You want to look at the left top corner to find the Led

2. Locate the Led in its housing and remove it by simply wiggling it and pulling out.




3. Cut the wires (one at a time, they are alive!) close to the holder.

4. Drill (5mm drill bit) through the hole all the way through, so the old Led is gone and drill (6,5mm drill bit) from the other side (white side of the bizzo) just that you touch the black part (this creates the socket for the Led)


5. I used 2-Component glue to fix and seal the Led (5mm bright white Led) in the bizzo, after the glue cured I soldered a resistor (470 Ohms) to one leg of the led and two cables finished it of. For good measure some hot glue over the stuff to give some rigidness.

6. Build the whole thing together again, do not forget to connect the cables (V8V orange is Plus cable, black is minus) use whatever way you fancy, I used plugs.

7. Close door lock car, unlock car and smile that the door handle light is working. If not you probably interchanged Plus and Minus.

8. Fit the door card and be happy.

The whole procedure took me about 3/4 of an hour an did cost € 1,-

I hope I could help

Cheers

Christian

 

Nice write up. you can reach that area with the window up? could you remove the whole door handle? or do you need to reove the glass?

 

Looks fairly easy to do. Why the 470 ohm resistor? Aren't you just swapping out the LED?

 

Youe can reach the Led holder with the window fully up, no problems there. Actuall you only get to the Led holder when the window is up. No need to remove the door handle, just wiggle the Led holder out.

The Led has a voltage of 3,2 - 3,6V the supply to the Led is 12V, that is the reason for the 470 Ohm resistor, without it the Led would be dead in less then a second. I assume that the original resistor lives in the white part of the bizzo, but how do you want to connect it, no way, therefore I used this solution.

 

Actually the resister is built into the base of the LED. A quick search on the web shows plenty of sources for white/green/red/blue/amber 12VDC LED T1. Still, an excellent write up on replacing the light and I thank you for posting it. I just noticed the passenger side light is out on my V8V. Cheers.

John

 

Hi John,

I used a standard Led as I have an assortment of them in my workshop, with the correct resistor I can fit them any voltage I like hence the 470 Ohm resistor.
You are absolutely right, I could have used a 12V Led but my nearest shop selling them is 70 Km away, so I used what I had.

Cheers

Christian

 

silly question perhaps but is there a point to the led in the door handle? other than as a guide to where it is in the dark?

 

Fantastic work!
Yep, it's mainly so you can find the handle in the dark. The light is also another indicator of the car locking/unlocking.

 

Christian,

You didn't by any chance take pictures of the old LED prior to removing it from the bizzo? Would like to see the original LED and how it was mounted.

John

 

Hi John,
Sorry I did not but the front of the Led was about 2mm inward of the round cylinder, the white back was flat as you can see on the second picture.
Hope this helps you.
Cheers
Christian

 

Stupid question do all Vantage have the door handle LED? when does it illuminate? what is its purpose?

Fantastic JOB really enjoy these tech write ups.

 

For the US market, not sure about elsewhere:
The LED door handles were added in '07. In '06 they didn't have the lights, and owners complained that it was hard to find the handles in the dark. They light up when the car is unlocked so you can find the handles when it's dark because the handle is flush with the body of the car.