More SIde Marker Lights

After my last post about getting the rear side-marker lights back on, the missing front side marker reflectors looked all the more absent. Today, I go through the effort to not just get them back on, but upgraded with bulbs. Trigger the purists' grumbles.

Side Markers Reflectors

Originally, these buses shipped with just a yellow reflector stuck on the lower front doors. I imagine it was because of some odd US DOT (Department of Transportation) thing to improve visibility. Nowadays, everyone has lights on the sides both front and back, so this is kind of novel, I suppose. Novelty aside, I want to increase the probability that I will be seen at night, since that is when Boo and I mostly travel to festivals. If you're lucky, your reflector looks like the picture on the right here. If you're more like me, well, it doesn't. Similar to my rear side marker lights, these reflectors were nasty with moss growing inside them when I bought the bus. I removed them (2 Phillips screws hold them on) and cleaned them until they were as good as I could get them. Then, they sat in a box for a few years... until today.

Run Electrical

hole cutting

The first step in converting the reflectors to lights is to run a signal wire from the neighboring front turn signal. In the early (sometimes called "low-light") bay window bus, this is straightforward. First, remove the lens (2 Phillips head screws) and then the housing (2 more chunkier Phillips head screws). Pull the housing away from the bus and rest it on the bumper. Knowing that the wiring could have been clowned with, I pulled on the headlights stalk to the parking/running light setting, and confirmed the light while sitting on the bumper is lit. With my voltmeter, I confirmed which of the 2 wires heading into the housing is the signal wire for the running light. In my case for the passenger side, it was the white wire. YMMV. Turn off the lights. Now, for some fun. Remove the inner door card on that side. This requires removing the window crank, the pull handle and the door release handle. Thread some wire, ideally the same color as the signal wire, through the front light housing hole from the front (front is front). In my case, I had removed the little switches that were designed to turn on the dome light when the door opened, so I have a pre-built hole to run the wire through. So, for me, I send the end of the wire up over the top of the metal air housing and out that hole and through the upper-most vent in the leading edge of the door, and down to the bottom of the inside of the door. You may need to run your wire another way, or put a hole in your pillar (I couldn't bring myself to do it, but your bus, your choice). In fact, on the driver side, I needed to thread through that hole first because of all the other wiring, the fusebox, etc in the way. Once strung, attach a basic female wire dis-connect onto both ends of the wire.

Bore a Hole
Once you have the signal wire dangling inside your door, you're ready to put a hole in the outside. Yeah, that sounds kinda scary, but the backside of the bulb-holder needs to stick into the inside of your door. Its not too late to back out. To locate the hole, find the centerpoint between the 2 screw holes that are used to hold the old reflector on. In my case, the holes were 3-inches apart so 1-1/2 inches made the center spot. With progressively large drill bits, pierce the door and then expand it enough for the centerbore of your hole saw to fit without any play. I found that a 30mm (1-1/4") hole was just barely large enough for the bulb-holder to fit. So, fit the 30mm hole-cutter onto your drill and cut the hole. Okay, so you're all-in now, but the rest is fairly easy.

Hook It Up

I pulled the rubber off the bulb-holder and verified which of the 2 posts are the ground, and which is the signal. In these simple circuits, it may not really matter, but I like to have it right so it doesn't bite me later. Once I knew which is which, I hooked up the signal-wire female dis-connect to the non-grounded tab. To the "ground" side, I attached a short wire which has a disconnect on one end and a ring terminal on the other. The ring side is held against the bus by the bulb-holder when it is attached to the bus. I taped the ring terminal to the housing, leaving the metal ring exposed, so it wouldn't fall off or shift during install. On the other end of the signal wire (at the original light housing), attach a dis-connect splitter (see picture) to the light housing and then connect the original signal wire to one side and this wire to the other.

looks stock, but there's a bulb in there

At this point, you should be able to pop a bulb into the holder, hold the grounding wire to some bare metal on the door and test. If everything lights up, you're ready to button it up. It is possible that the ground in your door is not reliable, so you may need to run a ground wire along the same route as the signal wire to the light housing. If not, send a couple Phillips screws through the yellow reflector, through the bulb holder, through the ring terminal and into the door. Then, re-mount the front signal housing and repeat on the other side. If you hadn't already, put your inner door card back on, and re-attach the window crank, door pull and latch.

Each side took me a couple of hours. Yep, I'm slow, but I have found that the faster I try to get, the slower I ultimately go. I hope you found this to be an easy, but rewarding little project for a period when you want to put some love on your bus, but don't want to get into anything too big. For these CoVid-19 days, just getting out of the house to do something constructive is rewarding.

Thanks, as always, for following along. Stay safe, wash your hands and practice physical distancing (but stay social)-