2017 Ambient Lighting No Longer Above Glove Box?!

[TDavis]

What was the whole process with the wiring for your Y harness? I would like to have this and my glove box light lol

 

[PearlGreenNMean]

I ordered the parts last night and was advised today by Tasca that the light bar is on backorder with a current release date projected to be November 16. Since I wanted to get the harness while it was available, I called them and dropped the light bar ("lamp assy") off my order so they could send the harness--they won't split shipments. The Tasca customer service was very helpful, though I did notice they are selling the part on their ebay page with no mention that they don't actually have one and that it is backordered. When looking elsewhere online for it, one discount part source checked and told me it was discontinued so they could not get it. I called a Ford dealer that advertises online and the parts guy said he would look for one. He called me back and said he showed 3 available in dealer inventories nationwide, so he ordered one for me. Hopefully I will ultimately be receiving both the light bar and the harness now, though I imagine they are going to be available out of wrecks pretty much forever.

That's horse shit, I'm out of luck. Have to get bent by the dealership for that bar.

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[Butterybunz]

Thanks for figuring this out guys, I updated the OP directing people to post #56

 

[PearlGreenNMean]

Lmao... They said there is one light bar in Ford stock from California, they're shipping over to the dealership I'm at in central Florida. 20.50$ was the price.

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[Stupidbutt]

To make the Y splice, I used old floppy drive power connectors. I could not find a source for the Ford factory connectors.
You need 1 female to connect to the factory wire under the console, and 2 male connectors to connect to the 2 LED wire harnesses.
So I took 3 female floppy drive connectors and spliced them together. To convert the females to male, I found some pc board interconnects ( small pieces of very hard wire ) that would insert into the females of both the Ford connector and the floppy drive connector.
Luckly there is a Frys electronics near me so I could piece it together.

 

[apex1]

I received the wiring harness a couple of days ago and if the UPS gods are with me, I should be receiving the dashboard light bar today, hopefully intact since these parts are evidently somewhat scarce at the moment (but surely plentiful in wrecked cars and very easy to remove). From looking at the harness, I will try first simply to install the new harness in place of the OEM 2017 harness, rather than fashioning any sort of sub-harness. I won't know until I get in there but it really does not look like it will be that hard to access. It looks like I will have an extra LED that Ford used to light the glovebox on pre-2017 cars, though I am not sure if that one was somehow switched which might mean the 2017s are missing yet another part. If so, I'll just tape over the LED and leave it tucked under the dash. I'll report back how it goes.

 

[XanRules]

It is a straight drop in. There are a couple options you can do.

1 - factory type install where you have just the 3 lights. L & R Footwells, and above glove box.
2 - Add on. Splice the new harness into the old and gain 2 extra LED lights plus the glove box.
3 - Add on. Make a female to double male molex wire Y harness. Where you plug the female into the console harness and the male plugs into the 2 LED harnesses.

Pop out the plastic filler above the glove box, snap in the new light bar. There are 3 long tabs holding the filler piece in. Pull the glove box and you can reach them easily.
The wire harness plugs in the left and right footwell lights and the dash light bar. If you want to route the wire the same as the original then you are going to have to pull the center console.
Then plug in the harness where the old harness is. Passenger side console, behind the side cover. The plug is the middle one.

So to recap, you need:
BE8Z-13E701-A Light bar
BE8Z-14A411-A Wire Harness

I chose to make a y harness so I can use the extra LED for the glove box, plus I can return it to stock if needed.

So to confirm, I am able to just plug and play if I order the harness and want a factory-only setup, and option 2, shown above, is how I splice things in AND regain the glovebox LED?

Thanks for taking the time to dig into this!

I received the wiring harness a couple of days ago and if the UPS gods are with me, I should be receiving the dashboard light bar today, hopefully intact since these parts are evidently somewhat scarce at the moment (but surely plentiful in wrecked cars and very easy to remove). From looking at the harness, I will try first simply to install the new harness in place of the OEM 2017 harness, rather than fashioning any sort of sub-harness. I won't know until I get in there but it really does not look like it will be that hard to access. It looks like I will have an extra LED that Ford used to light the glovebox on pre-2017 cars, though I am not sure if that one was somehow switched which might mean the 2017s are missing yet another part. If so, I'll just tape over the LED and leave it tucked under the dash. I'll report back how it goes.

This ties into my question, if there's a way to get the glovebox LED without splicing anything into the factory harness.

I'd like a glovebox LED, the ambient stuff is fun but the glovebox is more useful.

 

[Stupidbutt]

Option 1 does not have any glovebox light, they killed it for 2017 also. Option 2, where you use 2 wire harnesses, gives you 2 extra led lights that would normally go to the foot wells that you can use elsewhere. I am going to mount mine in the glovebox so I can have some light in there.

I have not looked too much into what parts are needed for the stock glovebox light. I know it needs a plunger switch, light socket and a different wire harness for it. It has nothing to do with the ambient lighting, just a light bulb.

 

[XanRules]

Gotcha, okay. Yeah, more interested in the glovebox light than the ambient but if I gotta have both or neither then I'll do this for sure.

 

[apex1]

I was thinking of replacing the 2017 harness with the earlier version, but I decided against it. The stock wiring harness would be a pain to remove and a bunch more disassembly of the console would be required. Instead, I just used the new pre-2017 harness only to power the light bar. I piggy-backed it onto the back of the OEM plug using 4 small sections of solid wire stripped on both ends inserted into the back of the OEM plug. I used RTV silicone to hold them in, then inserted the other ends into the female plug on the new harness. Note that I did trim the length of the wire ends a bit shorter than the picture shows so there was no exposed wire after being inserted into the new connector. Plug the original back in and the new plug is just behind it. Zip tie the new harness to the existing harnesses and you're done. The painters tape was just there to hold things while the silicone dried. I did not use the glovebox light since I don't have the switch housing assembly.

 

[apex1]

One more picture

 

[Ethan w]

Hello new to forum. Wanted to give some info about dash panel ambient lighting. I just today ordered the light bar and harness ford said there was 5 harnesses in Detroit and no light bars still available and was not going to be anymore available in the future. I apparently revived the last one from the istaca ford website.also did anyone get a concrete answer on how/if there was a way to put in own style glove box light. Thanks alot appt and look forward to joining the conversation.

 

[Ethan w]

And sorry bout the bad spelling sent from my phone

 

[TDavis]

One more picture

What gauge wire did u use?

 

[apex1]

What gauge wire did u use?

18 gauge solid

 

[TDavis]

[MENTION=8339]Stupidbutt[/MENTION]

Since you went from 1 female to 2 males which wires did you connect to each other to convert it from 1 into 2? Or did you just bunch them all up? Sorry I'm not good on wiring lol

 

[Stupidbutt]

[MENTION=8339]Stupidbutt[/MENTION]

Since you went from 1 female to 2 males which wires did you connect to each other to convert it from 1 into 2? Or did you just bunch them all up? Sorry I'm not good on wiring lol

On the connectors, just wire pin 1 to pin 1, pin 2 to pin 2 etc.. The color of the wire doesn't really matter as long as the pins are wired to each other. This way when you plug it into the wire harness their colors line up. Example: Ford connector pin 1 is brown wire - as long as I have a wire that is the same color on all my pin 1's, I am good to go.

 

[TDavis]

One more picture

Received my lightbar today and I'm finding hard on how you stuffed the wire into the oem plug to piggy back off of it.

 

[apex1]

Just take 4 short pieces of solid core 18 gauge wire and strip them at both ends. Stick one of the stripped ends into the back of the OEM plug along each of the wires coming out of the back of the plug. Then stick the other stripped end of each short pieces of wire into the front of the female plug on the new harness.

 

[Ethan w]

I have a reply to last post. If you do not want to deal with making a new piggyback harness. You can install factory harness in correct place if you remove airbag under drivers side dash. And both kick panels and glove box. I just installed one in my car yesterday. If it is helpful I can post pictures later.