Interior light activated by exterior door handle
 

Has anyone disabled this feature, where the dome light is turned on for a period of time by pulling on a locked door handle? I have never understood the point of this, except for possibly revealing any goodies stored inside for a would-be thief. This also has the unfortunate effect of setting off my alarm, since the dome light circuit is what the alarm monitors in case a door is opened.

I am just curious of if someone knows of a clean way to disable this before I start tracing wires.

Dave

No need to trace wires, the wire goes right to the latch on Rangers, I imagine it is the same on the van.

Yes, though I would prefer to not have to do each of the 4 doors individually and just get this signal wire wherever it is going. I guess I'll open a door panel to determine the wire color and then see if I can find where it goes.

Dave

Well, you do not mention year (1996 and up) ?, BUT, I can tell you for most Fords the connector for anything on the pass. side is right in front of the pass. battery and the feed for it comes from the driver's side and the connector is usually on the fender shirt. Lights, locks, windows, seats, etc. Just pull the wire out of the connector and terminate it and zip tie it to the harness. That takes care of the back and pass. side.

So .... stick a test lamp on a probe into the connector under the hood driver's side. and see which one lights up when you lift the handle (note: some will have power all the time). If I had to take a wild guess, it would be a blue wire. Green/brown/yellow/black wires/connector is for the rear lamps, so skip that.

Cool, thanks! That should certainly simplify things. I'll poke around this weekend and see what I can find. This is a 1994, btw.

Dave

The module that controls this feature is on the wall behind the driver's seat:

http://www.davelength.net/van/light_module.jpg

for more perspective (in case your interior walls have a covering):
http://www.davelength.net/van/light_module2.jpg

I started testing the 5 wires for their purpose, though I quickly discovered that simply disconnecting the plug disables this feature. This seems to be completely independent of the normal function of the interior lights, since with the plug disconnected they still come on when any door is opened, by twisting the head light switch, etc.

Dave