A full idiot (that’s me!) guide to a DIY sleepy eye kit for under £8
This is just a guide of how I did this mod to my car. I can’t guarantee this will work perfectly on everyone else’s car and take no responsibility if anything goes wrong if anyone else attempts it.
I thought I would have a crack at this after reading the following thread:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=72877
Firstly I popped into Maplin and bought the following:
1 x On/Off toggle switch/button - £1.69
1 x Momentary switch/button - £1.49
5 meters of electrical wire - 39p a meter (length needed depends on where you want to mount the switch/buttons).
1 x Packet of male bullet connectors - 69p
1 x Packet of female bullet connectors - 69p
1 x Packet of connectors for the switches/buttons - £1.19
Total cost to me: £7.70.
Now for the fun bit:
1. Remove the passenger side sill panel.
This is held to the sill with 5 plastic screws, which open clips. Undo these gently as they have a habit of pushing back in and causing you to start again. Once all screws are removed the sill panel will come off nice and easy. Luckily for me, not a sign of rust to be seen on my sills.
2. Remove the passenger side kick panel.
This is held in place by 1 plastic screw and 2 metal screws. Undo the 2 metal screws first. 1 is at the bottom left hand corner of the panel near the door and the other at the top right going into the bulkhead.
The plastic one is holding the panel into the door hinge area. Once these are all undone pull out the kick panel to expose your ECU.
3. Moving the ECU.
This is held to the body by 2 x 10mm bolts, one above the ECU and the other below it. Undo both (the wires for the ECU plug are in the way of the bottom bolt and a little bit of wiggling of the wires is required to get at it). Be careful not pull the wires too hard or knock the ECU.
Once it is free of the body it can be moved enough to get at the Headlight control relays.
4. Remove the headlight relay.
There are 2 relay’s, a black one and a brown one. You want the black one. Luckily it’s the closest and easiest to get at. It is held in place with 1x 10mm bolt – undo this and you should be able to wiggle the box out into the open. Once you have it in your hand you will see a white plastic plug going into the side of the relay. Unplug the relay and put it to one side.
5. Cutting and splicing the wire.
Now you have the plug in your hands inspect it closely, the wire you are after is a PINK one with a BLACK trace. Cut this and expose a bit of wire on both sides (I needed to cut the masking tape back a bit to expose more of the pink and black wire making it easier to work on). Now attach a male bullet connector to one side of the wire and a female bullet connector to the other. This way if you’re not happy with the mod or one headlight motor turns out to be slower than the other you can easily return the wire to normal by plugging the two bullet connectors together.
6. Wiring up the buttons/switches.
Work out where you want to mount your buttons/switches and cut 2 lengths of electrical wire to the desired lengths. Attach a male bullet connector to the Relay end of one wire and a female bullet connector to the relay end of the other wire. Plug these into the connectors that you inserted into the relay plug in section 5 and follow sections 4 to 1 backwards putting everything back in place.
That’s the hardest bit over with. Pat yourself on the back!
You should now have two wires coming out from under the kick panel, which you can route to wherever you have decided to mount your buttons.
With the wires in place, cut them back a bit and attach the wires to your on/off toggle switch/button (the connectors on the back of my switch/button had holes in them that I simply pushed the exposed wire through), leaving enough exposed wire to attach 2 further bullet connectors. The bullet connectors will stop the on/off switch from going anywhere. I used some insulating tape to separate the 2 exposed bits of wire and stop them touching each other and shorting. With the two bullets now coming off your On/Off switch you can now wire in the Momentary contact switch/button and close the loop.
I used two short bits of electrical wire – a bullet on one end and a switch connector on the other end of each. Attach the bullets to the ones coming off your On/off switch and attach the other connectors to the Momentary switch/button.
Job done!
7. How it works
The On/Off button will open or close the original loop.
With the button pressed “ON” the headlights work as normal. Up with full beam and back down again when turned off.
With the button pressed “Off” the headlights will work as normal, but won’t go back down again when you turn the lights off.
This is where the Momentary switch comes in. After turning the lights off you have 5 seconds in which to lower the lights to your desired position.
I had previously done the “No Pop-ups on sidelights” mod and this doesn’t affect or interfere with how the Sleepy Eye mod works.
Japanese Drift look for School Dinner money!